


fun and games and gays

by unicyclehippo



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 32,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: a collection of prompts from tumblr





	1. The Start of Something More

can you write something about Ellie and Dina’s first sleepover and sharing a bed?

* * *

'Cheery place, isn’t it? I especially love all the homey touches you’ve put up.’

Ellie glances over her shoulder to the girl; _Dina_, Ellie thinks, and she forces her attention back to the trap she’s balancing on the attic trapdoor because _that_ is what is important right now and also because there’s a decent chance that Ellie is doing something totally fucking dumb with her face like a goofy smile or a blush or something. All because of a girl. A really cute seventeen year old girl who happens to make the whole wounded, grimy thing look really good. Unlike Ellie, who tucks an irritating strand of hair behind her ear and finds, like, a whole fucking twig in her hair.

_Great job, Ellie._

She focuses on what she’s actually good at and finishes off the trap, answering Dina with a nod and a soft sound of agreement approaching amusement.

Standing is… it’s a shit show. Hurts like half a wall fell on top of her—oh wait, it did. Disguising her limp by walking slowly toward the table Dina sits on, Ellie looks over to the tiny window on the east side of the house. Nods toward it when she feels her left knee buckle, and Dina turns to look. Ellie closes the distance to the table—grips the back of one of the chairs hard when pain flares through her hip and side—and discreetly leans her weight against it and off her leg. The relief is staggering and Ellie can hear herself how weird and forcibly breezy she sounds when she asks,

‘Beacon flag out? Set up?’

Dina frowns a tiny bit. ‘Yep.’

‘Great, great.’ Ellie nods a few times awkwardly. Scans the attic for something to talk about. There’s a creepy mannequin in the corner with the rotted remains of some dress pinned on it, and a whole pile of fabric that probably needs to be burned. A sewing machine too heavy to move and freakishly resistant to being smashed open for parts. Ellie doesn’t want to think about that failure again so she looks again to the table, then at Dina who looks as awkward as Ellie feels, then the window again.

‘They—the zombies, they might hang around for a while,’ Ellie warns Dina.

It earns her the most scathing look Ellie has ever experienced; feels like a layer of skin has been scraped off and she’s left with prickling nerves and burning cheeks.

‘Sorry. I’m—I don’t mean that you don’t know anything about them, that was a dumb thing to say.’

Dina makes her stew for a half second longer before she relaxes. ‘It’s fine. I'm used to people thinking I don’t know anything.' Ellie winces, but the comment doesn't seem to be directed at her, exactly. 'Be pretty and funny and suddenly you didn’t survive the apocalypse, same as everyone else.’ She says it flatly, but Ellie—who can’t look her in the eye at the moment—watches her swing her feet out from under the table, either wanting to kick something (or some_one_, Ellie thinks) or the irritation she squashed out of her voice had to go somewhere. 

‘That’s not—do they really? I mean, that’s really not what I meant,’ Ellie fumbles, and she moves to shift her weight and grimaces at another flash of pain. ‘I,’ she hurries to think of something that will distract them both from her stupid leg. ‘I say stupid, obvious things when I’m nervous. Ticking the checklist of survival, or whatever. That’s—you being—that’s really not what I meant. You can hold your own. Obviously,' Ellie says, waving around at the both of them, safe enough in an attic, neither of them dead. That is, depressing as it is, almost as good as it gets. 

‘Alright.’ There’s a hint of warmth back in Dina’s tone and she kicks her feet out again, crosses them at the ankles. ‘Sorry,’ she offers after another moment.’

‘What for?’

‘Mm.' Her nose crinkles, brow furrows, head tilts a fraction. Small movements, but Ellie notices. Something about Dina draws attention. 'Being defensive, maybe.’

Ellie blinks. Shrugs, shakes her head. She feels a little dizzy with how the conversation spins on a dime from abrasive energy to this slower, softer melody. ‘Uh. I get it. You don’t know me, we haven’t spent much time together. I could be some asshole who thinks you don’t know anything, right? I’ve met a few folk like that.’ Ellie grimaces. ‘Oh god—is that how I’ve come off?’ She pulls an exaggerated look of dismay, hoping she’s playing this right, that it’s recognisable as a joke. That Dina doesn’t take the attempt at lightheartedness as insult.

Thankfully, Dina smiles. She tilts her head to the other side, and Ellie is put in mind of a bird—all keen eyes and the kind of stillness that hints at flight just seconds away.

‘No,’ she says after a moment. ‘I think you’re just fine.’

That throws Ellie into another flush and she lifts her hand to cover her face by scratching at her hairline and then genuinely running a hand over her hair self-consciously because if she has some more leaves or debris in there she’s maybe going to cry.

‘Good. I’m,’ Ellie licks her lips, nods down to her boots. ‘I’m glad. Hey, you mind if I sit down?’

‘No,’ Dina half-laughs, half-frowns, probably incredulous that Ellie even has to ask. ‘Go ahead.’

Agonising over it for a half-minute, Ellie settles for the one she’s already holding onto because when she puts weight on her leg it hurts again. Real bad. She takes one big step around to the front of the chair, a gamble, and then realises it’s stupid to pretend she’s not hurt. She eases her leg out in front of her and lets out a long, shaky breath.

Thinking is easier when half her brain isn’t tied up in ignoring pain, and Ellie rubs at her eyebrow, frowns down at the table and a nick in its side where something had been dropped or thrown. She digs at it with her nail.

‘I’m sorry if it seemed at all, ever, like I thought you knew shit all about this stuff. That’s not what I meant,’ she tells her quietly, sincerely. Glancing up, it looks like Dina is ready to smile it away, which Ellie will happily allow after she’s finished. ‘I do plan out loud, honest. So sometimes I’ll say the dumbest shit. Like, hey, I wonder how many of the fuckers I can set on fire by doing this super dangerous thing. So like…just,’ Ellie waves her hands awkwardly, catches a glimpse of grey on her arm where dust and sweat has cemented into hard flakes. ‘Um. Feel free to tell me to shut the fuck up absolutely whenever, y’know?’

Dina’s smile grows wider. Sitting on the tabletop, she’s a good foot or two above Ellie and she tucks her chin down toward her shoulder, her chest, so she can direct the smile at Ellie alone.

Not that there is anyone else around, Ellie remembers after a second, flustered dumb.

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Dina promises.

‘Awesome.’

They sit in silence for a minute, neither of them about to comment on the way Ellie’s voice had cracked and she attempted poorly to cover it with a cough.

‘Probably no one will come for us for a while, at least. Two hours from Jackson, two hours back,’ Ellie says, counting out the four hours on her fingers. ‘If they give us leeway of three hours to find something, and it’s only been five hours since we set out, they won’t start heading out until we miss the hour mark post return. We’re gonna be here overnight, I reckon.’

‘Ooh, girls night! Sleepover.’

Dina looks like she regrets the comment—Ellie can imagine if people had had such low opinions of her in the past, she might expect to be laughed at or ignored. Even joel, Ellie thinks a little ungraciously, might’ve treated her like she’s silly.

Ellie quirks a smile over at her. ‘What kind of activities do we have planned? Eating dry rations, talking about the latest Jackson scandal, sharpening our weapons?’

‘Please, we’re in an attic full of clothes. I'm thinking…fashion show, then talking about our crushes. Plus, plot the killing of two dozen zombies.’

The pause Dina adds before the third suggestion is a masterclass in timing and Ellie is shocked into a delighted laugh. Dina looks very pleased with herself—very pleased indeed, bordering on smug—and now that she’s relaxed, Ellie is kinda enamoured by how very, very pretty she is. It’s hard to find beauty in such a bleak world but not right now—not when Dina crinkles her nose, pleased by Ellie’s reaction; not when dust motes and golden afternoon light give her a profile bordering on holy; not when warm brown eyes crinkle and a smile pushes dimples into her cheeks. There’s a whole world of loveliness in her, from the freckled constellations over her cheeks to the heart Ellie has only had glimpses of.

‘Ellie.’

‘Mm?’

‘You’re staring.’

Ellie blinks, sucks in a breath. She jerks her leg, lets the jolt of pain startle her into focus. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I’m tired, I guess.’

‘Pity, you should’ve said you were looking at my pretty face. I would’ve forgotten that you’d ever asked me if I remembered the beacon flag.’

‘Is that still an option?’ Ellie asks, pretending to be nervous, and grins when she’s rewarded with a laugh.

They talk a little more as the night goes on—Ellie is seventeen now too, “Had my birthday two weeks ago actually,” she’s a huge fan of books but she has to make up her own endings sometimes when the pages are all moulded; Dina likes music, dancing, and once in a bar she drank from a keg she and her friends had found at a college, puked everywhere—but mostly they find the actually not disgusting fabrics and make a bed up against the brick wall and sit side by side to get some sleep. They talk more when they realise in the silence the alternative is to listen to the zombies scrape and moan and rattle off that horrible clicking shriek they do. Despite being firmly shut out by stone and metal, they’re still creepy as fuck.

Sleep is a long time coming.

//

‘Ow, Jesus, shit in a bag.’

The muttered curse wakes the both of them more or less at the same time. They’re leaning against one another and Ellie notices the warmth first, and then her own gun pointed to the figure hauling up into the attic space.

‘Ellie girl, y’all up here—whoa there,’ the intruder says carefully, gently, ‘It’s just me.’ _Maria_. ‘Here I was thinking you couldn’t find a way to make a simple tech run dangerous.’

Ellie sags, blinks back instant tears of relief. She lowers her gun. ‘I’m a natural at it,’ she croaks. ‘Joel?’

‘Taking out some worried dad vibes on the clickers, I think.’

‘Classic Joel.’

‘How’d you like your first mission?’ Maria asks Dina once Ellie puts her pistol away, and she comes to kneel in front of both of them, a warm hand on Ellie’s knee, her other under Dina’s chin tilting it to see her eyes, the scrape on her chin where she’d fallen hard.

‘It was great,’ Dina says and Ellie’s heart lurches, recognising within herself the same dark humour. ‘Got what we came for, saw the sights. Made some new friends.’

‘Acquainted our friends to my gun when they got a bit handsy,’ Ellie contributes, and Dina flashes her a brilliant smile over Maria’s head, winks.

//

They make it back no problem, and Dina goes her way and Ellie goes another and that’s the end of that.

Until a tap at her bedroom door two nights later has Ellie coming awake in harshly learned stages. Fight—weapon drawn—and then focus—searching the shadowed corners for an enemy, checking the window for any cracks. When the tap comes again, Ellie lurches out of her bed. Cold stings her feet even through her woollen socks and she shivers, pads silently from one solid section of floor to the next without a single creak.

She presses her ear near against the door and waits for a signal from Joel or some indication of what it is.

Another tap.

‘Ellie?’

Ellie frowns. ‘Dina?’ She opens the door, looks over the other girl worriedly. She looks alright—tired, dark around the eyes, but she’s not bleeding or bit so…priorities.

‘Are you alright?’

‘I’m—‘ Dina smiles winningly at her, smile slipping after only a second. ‘It’s stupid but I keep dreaming I’m back on the run but I’m by myself this time and—‘ She cuts off. Doesn’t need to say anymore though. Ellie understands.

‘I can make you, um,’ Ellie blinks. ‘Tea?’

‘No, thank you,’

Ellie watches Dina twist her hands. Sleep slowed, she doesn’t think before she speaks. ‘You look like shit.’ 

Dina laughs. ‘Thanks.’

‘Any time. I don’t think we even have tea, by the way.’

‘You were just being polite?’

‘I was tryin’ to ask what you’re doing here,’ Ellie says more bluntly than she knows how to counter. Tries, by softening her expression and opening the door even wider.

Dina swallows. ‘Can we have a proper sleepover? No zombies or anything, just,’

Ellie reaches out and puts a hand on Dina’s hands to stops the twisting turning motion. She leads her to the bed first and lets her get comfortable, leaving to the cupboard where she knows she has another blanket—ah, right there, a thick blanket as heavy as it is warm and she throws it out over Dina and tucks it firmly around her. Dina safe, secure, and warm, Ellie throws herself back into her own place. Still warm, thankfully.

‘…This is a very tight tuck.’

Ellie hums.

‘Worried I’ll get handsy?’ Dina jokes.

Ellie turns her head, looks surprised over at Dina. ‘No.’

Dina just smiles, wriggles closer. With Ellie laying on her back, Dina curls next to her so her forehead is against Ellie’s shoulder, her knees to Ellie’s leg and hip. Hands curled somewhere between. A quick glance shows Ellie nothing but relief and that eases her, means she feels no pressure to make conversation. She doesn’t think she could anyway, sleep pressing down on her like a titan, so she just listens to Dina’s breaths to make sure she’s okay.

‘Can I hug you?’ Dina whispers. ‘Is that okay?’

‘Go for it. I’m used to it. Joel’s a snuggler.’

That makes Dina laugh, a single note of surprise. and then, in the grey muted light of dawn, giggles. She covers her mouth and nose with one hand when she snorts, buries her head into the pillow next to Ellie’s head. Finally, when the laughter fades, Dina lets out a long, tense breath that settles warm in the space between them before that fades too. She takes and holds, hugs, Ellie’s arm when Ellie holds it out a little awkwardly to her.

Ellie feels the incredible warmth from someone in her bed, the slightly uncomfortable press of Dina’s knees against her—not that it’s too much, or too bony or anything like that, Ellie realises, just that it’s an entirely new sensation to be so close to another person. She can feel her own pulse fluttering fast in the space beneath her jaw and wonders if Dina’s races too. Falls asleep like that, thinking about that thundering beat beneath her lips. 


	2. Something More

prompt: more early dina and ellie interactions? like their first patrol together or any other firsts?

* * *

‘_Hot ass Ellie, this is Work Wife Dina, do you copy? Over.’_

Ellie sighs, rolls her eyes. She’s glad for the cover of night that hides her heated cheeks and reaches for the walkie-talkie strapped to her vest. Holding down the button, she replies, ‘You’re not supposed to use it unless you’re in trouble.’

There's a long pause, static crackling away. Ellie is half a second from speaking again when Dina's voice comes crackling through again.

‘_I’m sorry Hot Ass, were you done? You didn’t say over. Over_.’

‘Dina, you’re only supposed to use the walkie if you’re in trouble. _Over._’

‘_Copy that, Hot Ass. Bit unclear on who you’re talking to. Over._’

‘You want me to use your code name?’ Ellie rolls her eyes again but she can’t help the fond, if confused, smile that curls at her lips. When the walkie crackles, she grunts and remembers to add, ‘Over.’

‘_Hot Ass Ellie, I do indeed. Over._’

‘I’m not calling you my—I’m not calling you that. Over.’

‘_You can pick something for me,_’ Dina offers, which is pretty magnanimous of her. Ellie has only known her for two weeks but she’s come to the conclusion that Dina isn’t really the type to concede ground. ‘_Over._’

Ellie strolls back the way she had come along the guarding wall, back toward the watchtower. She's most of the way through her pass of this section, searching for movement in the area cleared around the settlement and in the tree line far from them. Nothing. Clear night skies, stars scattered overhead, tall grass showing Ellie where the wind goes after it tugs curiously at her hair, her clothes. She scans it again, keeping her eyes unfocused and letting them jump to any movement she detects, but it's only the swoop of a bat or some other small flying creature. She lifts the walkie to her lips again. 

‘What about Dina? Over.’

‘_That’s a negatory, Hot Ass Ellie, and this is a one strike system. Your code naming rights have been rescinded. Over._’

‘I understand. You don’t want to be called Tiny Dancer. Over.’

There’s a long pause and then, ‘_That’s a music reference, right? Over._’

‘Yeah. Joel has the CD. I’ll play it for you tomorrow. Over.’

‘_Awesome. Code name tentatively accepted. I see you, Hot Ass, come on back. Over and out._’

Ellie waves to the window of the lookout where a faint light flickers. Clipping the walkie to her vest once more, Ellie makes a careful sweep of the wall—it looks solid and undamaged—and of the grounds within, but it’s pushing midnight and it seems like everyone who isn’t on shift has gone to bed. There’s a light on in the kitchen still, and over at Tommy’s, but other than that all is still.

Ellie climbs up to the lookout, pulls herself in through the window. She brushes herself down and when she looks up, Dina is eyeing her with interest.

‘What?’

‘You made that look easy.’

‘Huh?’

‘The climb.’ Dina points out the window.

Ellie shrugs. 'It is, once you know where the handholds are. Don’t worry, someone will show you during the day and then you won’t be stuck in here all shift.’

‘I’m not bored,’

‘Are you sure?’ Ellie asks flatly, and she lays a hand on her walkie.

Dina’s cheeks dust over pink but she soldiers on. ‘Not bored. Just paying you a compliment.’

Ellie shifts a little uncomfortably. ‘Oh. Well. It—I’ve been climbing walls to get where I shouldn’t since I was, like, ten.’

‘So you’re saying it’s not hard.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess.’

‘Mm. Can you tell me something?'

'Sure, of course.'

'Is there anything you’re _not_ good at?’

‘Oh sure, heaps of stuff,’ Ellie nods and she takes the seat next to Dina, slinging her rifle off from around her shoulders. Refusing to think about how much easier it is to talk about shit she’s bad at than the good, she says, ‘You know, uh, geography. Poetry.’

‘You’re not gonna recite me poetry? I’m hurt.’

‘You’d be hurt worse if I did,’ Ellie tells her, tone bone dry, and Dina laughs. She throws her head back when she does and the movement makes her wheelie chair scoot back across the floor a little, makes her spin. Maybe it’s her, maybe it’s spending most of her teen life with Joel who would not win _any_ kind of award for emotional visibility, but the display of apparently easy, free expression of delight is shocking and knocks Ellie breathless and dumb, so when Dina recovers Ellie is just kind of…staring at her. ‘Uh. Um.’

‘What else are you bad at?’ Dina prompts, all sweetness and guileless attention. ‘I promise I won’t make fun of you.’

Ellie finds herself smiling over at the other girl, enchanted by the apparent sweetness—not false, but a guise nonetheless—and the intelligence waiting patiently behind. Like a knife. Or a scalpel, dangerous and useful in equal measure in a practised hand.

‘Uh, well, lets see,’ Ellie says with a grin, and she leans back in her chair. Casting a careful glance over the court and then outward, to the expanse beyond the Jackson walls, she only speaks when she’s sure it’s all clear.

'Painting.'

'Have you ever even tried to paint? Do we _have_ paint here?'

'Sure, whitewash type paint. Tommy says he's never seen someone paint a wonkier fence.'

'That's impressive, truly.'

Ellie mimes lifting a cowboy hat, drawls a, 'Well, thankee ma'am. Let's see, what else? Uh - okay, birds hate me.'

'Just birds?'

'Rude. I'm bad at singing.’

‘Ooh. Oh no, that's unforgivable.'

‘You’re a singer?’ Ellie asks with interest, brows lifting.

‘I don’t want to brag,’ Dina says, demure, eyelashes fluttering, ‘but I’m incredibly toneless.’

‘Well hey, there’s something you’re good at. Being modest.’

‘I wouldn't say I'm _good_ at being modest—I’m great at it.’

Ellie snorts, cuts her eyes over to a smug Dina. ‘Okay,’ she admits, reluctantly, ‘that’s a good one, that's funny.’

‘I had a feeling you’d like it.’

‘Oh, you had a feeling did you?’

‘Mhm.’ Dina’s eyes flash bright. ‘You seem like a bit of a nerd.’

‘Excuse me, that’s a lot of a nerd thank you very much.’

‘My mistake.’

‘You’re forgiven,’ Ellie pronounces graciously. She meets Dina’s eyes for a moment before they both break into silly, tired giggles, the kind where they both know they’re finding the situation funnier than it really is but they can’t stop.

‘Okay, okay,’ Dina gasps. ‘That’s enough. Phew.’ She wipes a finger under each of her eyes, flicks away any trace of the hysterical laughter. 'Oh my stomach hurts.’

‘I needed that,’ Ellie sighs when her grin stops hurting, pressing too deep into her cheeks. ‘It’s been—god, years since I laughed like that.’

‘Getting deep tonight.’

‘It’s midnight,’ Ellie mutters. ‘I always get deep at midnight.’

‘Do you now?’ Dina winks, making it perfectly clear she’s making an innuendo and Ellie huffs, rolls her eyes, and blushes.

‘Alright, alright,’ she grumbles. ‘Get it out of your system.’

‘I’d love to—you offering?’

Ellie splutters again, mumbles a few incredibly indecipherable comments. She's still going when their replacements come, and Dina swirls our of the lookout in a cloud of perfumed hair and laughter, throwing a, ‘Another thing you’re bad at,’ over her shoulder.

Ellie waits until she’s gone before following down the same path, shaking her head and muttering to herself. ‘Talking to pretty girls? I could’ve told her that.’ 


	3. Raise Your Hand if You Like Girls

Do you think Ellie told Dina she was gay or Dina already had a hunch? 

* * *

‘He’s into you.’

‘Huh?’

Dina nods subtly to Jack—Jack Jackson, an unfortunate combination—who is working on building another table under Michelle’s direction at a work station across the warehouse from where Ellie and Dina are set. ‘He’s into you,’ she tells Ellie again when the other girl seemingly ignores her, working the plane over the side of the table, wood shavings curling up from the edge she's slowly smoothing out. ‘He keeps looking over here.’

‘Probably at you.’

‘Nope.’

Ellie stands finally. Truly just to straighten her back and shake out her arms, and she looks like she’s about to argue with Dina but then Jack glances over and smiles right at her. She smiles uncomfortably back, sets down the plane, and turns to stride purposefully out the door, pace just shy of a sprint.

‘Ellie?’

Dina follows. Her friend doesn’t make it easy but when she follows out the door, Dina waits and listens and after a moment she hears the clatter of boots on steel steps—the bridge. She jogs after her, darting around the corner and down below the warehouse and finds her sitting on a crate on the level below. Through the gridding of the catwalk, Dina can look down into the grey waters of the bloated river running quickly below them. Ellie peels wood chips and shavings off her flannel, her heavy gloves, and drops them down between the gridwork.

‘Really?' Dina calls as she approaches. Ellie doesn't so much as look up; she must have heard Dina coming. 'A boy smiles at you and you run for it?’

‘Shut up,’ Ellie grumbles.

‘I will, but,’ Dina holds up a warning finger, ‘it’s very funny so you better tell me something so I don’t tease—‘

‘I like girls.’

‘—you. Just girls?’

‘What?’

‘You only like girls?’ Dina sits on the crate across from Ellie.

Ellie looks unsettled. A little frown settles between her brows. Just a small one, not angry, but rather thoughtful or maybe confused. The shadows from the catwalk above play havoc over her face and Dina can't get a read on her; for a moment, Dina thinks that there is something in Ellie's eyes, something unfamiliar, but then the moment is gone as the shadows shift again, so quickly that Dina puts the whole thing out of mind. A trick of the light.

She focuses instead on Ellie's frown and can't decide whether Ellie's frown, her unease, is from telling Dina that, sharing that with her, or whether it's still about Jack’s smile.

‘I…yeah.’

‘Not even one boy ever?’

Ellie shakes her head. ‘Not one.’

‘Huh.’ Dina can’t imagine. She’s always liked to look at the boys and men around; she’s always liked to look at most people, though. For a fleeting moment, she imagines Ellie looking at her from across the court as she fixes something—the _something _is ephemeral, unnecessary, the fantasy doesn’t have to be perfect, Dina can roll with it—and the way her green eyes would linger on Dina’s legs, her hips, her chest, before they met Dina’s eyes and she would grin a crooked grin and return to her work. Dina shivers. 'You should tell him you’re not interested. Clean and simple.’

Ellie nods. ‘It’s just annoying. I didn’t notice.’

‘You’re pretty and strong, it would be unfair if you were smart too.’ Dina grins when Ellie laughs. ‘You are great though. I’m not surprised he likes you.’

‘I am.’ Ellie shrugs a little uncomfortably when Dina lifts her brows in a question. ‘I don’t know, don’t you think it’s weird? I’m not flirting or anything—I just work. I don’t think we’ve even spoken that often. Three times, maybe.’

‘It’s not weird to be immediately attracted to someone. Haven’t you ever felt like,’ Dina clicks. Tries to click. She can’t actually click but Ellie has gotten all the teasing out of her system about that ages ago so now Dina can fake-click in peace. ‘Like that?’

Ellie’s lips quirk, and Dina privately notes how very close her fantasy got in recreating that crooked smile. ‘Maybe.’

‘Do I know her?’

‘I—no. No, this was back in Boston.’

It’s weird to Dina that Ellie sounds like she’s half lying, half telling the truth. She lets it slide, nods. ‘There you go, then. Tell him you’re not interested, or that you only like girls maybe. He’ll back off.’

Ellie nods again. ‘Yeah. Dina?’ She waits for Dina to be looking over at her and she looks her in the eyes, green eyes dazzling clear and bright with affection and relief and thankfulness. ‘Thanks for being cool. With, with me, I mean.’

‘Being—oh. You’re welcome. I understand, though, it’s hard not to like girls.’

Ellie blinks. ‘What?’

‘Come along, we have to go back to work.’ She hops off the crate and quickly makes her way up the steps, toward the mess hall and the shift allocations for evening.

‘Wait!’ Ellie scrambles to follow her, boots clunking on the metal. Dina laughs when she stumbles in her hurry. ‘What did you mean? Dina? What do you mean?’


	4. Gone Fishing

pls pls pls write something about Ellie and uncle tommy! I’m just so intrigued to see how she fits into their family in ur verse e.g does he accept her as his niece right away, does he understand her and Joel’s bond, all that jazz

* * *

‘Alright now, flick your wrist like this and—hey, there you go, you’ve got it!’ Tommy tells her approvingly. He’s standing up river from her a way, well aware of the way she flinches when he gets too close, and he keeps his voice gentle and clear.

Ellie pretends she doesn’t notice, doesn’t know how much Joel told him. Instead, she focuses on the reel in her hands and the jerking wire. ‘How come you get the rod and I get…this?’

‘Because you have no clue how to fish and Maria will take strips from my hide if we come back with nothing?’

‘Touche.’ Ellie hooks her finger under the wire, tugs it lightly like he told her to. Makes it look like a real bug or something. She had missed the words, too intent on watching his hand as he very carefully reached across to show her how to do it. ‘Like this?’

‘Perfect, Ellie girl,’ he tells her cheerfully. He flicks the end of the rod so his lure lands with a faint plop in the water.

Ellie makes her way slowly over the slick rocks to a big one she wants to sit on, her feet aching a little. Passing Tommy, she slips trying to skirt around him, and he catches her elbow before she can fall, crouching and catching her a little awkwardly against his hip and leg. Ellie throws herself violently from him, scrambling back over sharp stone and grainy grey sand, her breath coming fast. Tommy stays very, very still, one hand between them and the other keeping a firm grip on the fishing rod.

‘S-sorry. I wanted to get to the rock.’

Tommy nods. ‘Go on. Careful now, it’s a bit slippery,’ he warns her. He crooks a smile. ‘As we now know.’

‘Right. Got it,’ she whispers. Stepping over to the rock, she puts it between them, and tosses out her fishing line again into the shallows.

//

The tension eases after a time and Ellie climbs onto the rock, kicking her heels against it and watching her line a little morosely.

Tommy has caught five fish already and she hasn’t had a single bite, as far as she can tell.

‘Are you moving the line?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Hmm. Might be the fish don’t like that spot,’ he tells her. ‘Or,’ he continues when something fearsomely big latches onto the end of Ellie’s line and tugs her clear up into her feet, ‘maybe they’re avoidin’ somethin. Pull, Ellie!’

She jerks hard on the hand reel, feels the fish tug back. Turning it over and over in her hand, she starts to make out the shape of the enormous fish under the water, it’s twisting and jerking movements, the glint of scales. Excitement thrums high in her chest and she tugs again, reels it in further. The line grows taut and tense and, just when she thinks she’s got it, it snaps.

‘What?’ Ellie says, staring dumbly down at the broken wire.

‘Damn,’ Tommy whistles. ‘What a monster! That would’ve feed a whole army for a week.’

Ellie sags, hunches her shoulders in. ‘Sorry—I almost had it,’ she insists. ‘But the wire broke, and,’ she holds the reel out to him, swallowing her upset. ‘Sorry.’

Tommy takes the reel, turns it over in his hands. ‘Ah, that’s not so bad. Only snapped a bit off, we can get another hook on this.’

When that’s all he says, Ellie frowns over at him. ‘Really?’

‘Sure.’

‘But, it got away,’

‘Fun though, right? Joel hates fishing, hasn’t got the patience for it,’ Tommy sighs, sitting next to his basket that holds the fish and his bait, some extra hooks. He twists a new one onto the line with practised fingers, presents it to her with a smile. ‘I gotta admit, I didn’t either before coming here. Now, it’s nice to get away for a day.’ He twitches the reel again, an invitation, and Ellie curls numbed fingers around it. She expects him to hold on to it but he doesn’t, gives it back to her without so much as extracting a promise to be more careful. ‘He thought you might like it too. Do you?’

Ellie blinks. ‘Yeah.’

‘Liar. you’re bored out of your brain,’ Tommy snorts.

Despite the wary set of her these days, Ellie smiles back. ‘I’m not,’ she tells him. ‘It’s nice out here.’

Tommy nods. Hesitates as he slips a piece of bait onto his own hook. ‘I asked Joel if I could take you out, y’know.’

‘Yeah. He mentioned it.’

‘Figured as much. I knew he’d be wrong about it—he usually is,’ Tommy says, and Ellie’s protectiveness surges until she realises that he’s just teasing his brother. ‘But I figured, y’know, might be nice for you to get away from it all.’

He looks over at her with such a tender, careful expression that Ellie’s eyes sting with tears, without her permission. She turns quickly away, the shore crunching under her boots, and marches to the edge of the river to throw her line in, focusing on the sliver of silver and nothing else.

Tommy steps up near her, about five metres down stream.

//

‘How ‘bout that?’ Maria says in wonder, looking down at the most pitiful little fish that has probably ever existed. ‘You caught that, Ellie?’

‘She sure did,’ Tommy crows. ‘First time fishing and she caught something! And wait until you hear about the monster that got away—that thing’ll start _legends_, I'm sure of it,’ he tells his wife, stopping to kiss her and hand off the rest of the fish he had caught.

‘Off! You smell like fish!’ Maria swats at Tommy and Ellie fingers the hilt of her knife, shoving her hand into her pocket instead when Tommy immediately steps back and hoists the basket onto his shoulder.

‘I’ll talk this to the boys, people who will really appreciate me,’ he huffs.

Maria swats at his ass, and shakes her head lovingly when he jogs out the door. ‘Did you have fun, love?’ Maria asks her, turning back to Ellie and her tiny fish. She reaches up to stroke her fingers through Ellie’s hair, tucking a strand behind her ear.

‘I—yeah. I did,’ she tells her, voice soft.

Maria’s face splits into a pleased smile. ‘Good. I’m glad—I hate fishing, it’s good for Tommy to have someone with him.’

Ellie nods, happy to pretend that’s the reason Tommy took her. ‘He’s a good guy,’ Ellie tells her very honestly. Maria sweeps her fingers through her hair again, bends to kiss her forehead.


	5. Gone Fishing 2.0

Ellie and Maria made me tear up in the best way possible. Maria seemed so warm and loving. Can we get some more of that good stuff? 

* * *

‘Alright, Tommy showed you his version of fishing, kiddo, but this is how I like to do it.’

Ellie braces her hands on her knees, panting from the quick pace Maria has kept up for the whole hike. ‘Give me—oh god—a minute,’ she wheezes.

Maria laughs, moves into Ellie's space to press her gently up into standing. She makes her pull her shoulders back and put her hands on her head, and grinning, tickles Ellie's ribs. She laughs when it makes Ellie squeak and jump back, hugging herself. 'You breathe better like this.’

‘Am I still breathing—hoo boy—at all?’ Ellie wheezes again, and she doesn't trust well but she puts a few paces between them and tries to open up her chest again, hands on her head. It makes Maria laugh, which was the goal. And honestly, she can already feel it helping.

Maria shakes her head, casts a fond look over to Ellie. ‘Cute.'

When Ellie can actually, truly breathe, she totters over to the stream to drink and, added bonus, avoid Maria so the woman can’t see her blush. Maria fiddles with the small pack she carried, and Ellie stands in time to see her shake it out. The thing opens up to twice its size and Maria removes the lining so it resembles a basket with small gaps in the weave. Shucking her boots and socks, she wades into the water.

‘I made a dam here a few days ago. If we’re lucky—Ellie,’ she calls, waves her over. ‘Come look!’

Ellie hops in place, yanking off her own boots and cuffing her jeans a few times before stepping into the river. The water is freezing and Ellie winces but forces herself forward; soon, the bite of cold eases and Ellie forgets it completely when she sees the flicker of many fish within the dam.

‘Holy shit!’

‘Cool, right?’ Maria sets the pack down into the water. The fish dart off to the walls of the dam, a few of them slipping out but most of them simply swimming around to the other side. Standing still and patient, Maria waits for the fish to forget about her and then begins to drag the pack through the water. The water itself streams out the gaps at the bottom but the fish stay pressed to the bottom of it and, with long sure moves, Maria ensures they can’t escape. A few more passes and they’ve already gathered two dozen fish, plenty for the settlement for a few days.

‘And there we go,’ Maria tells her as they wade out from the river. ‘Not bad for an hours work, hmm?’

‘That…is brilliant. And so much better than fishing—it’s so_ boring_.’

Maria laughs, delighted. Her short blonde hair catches the light when she tosses her head back. Ellie tucks a strand of hair behind her own ear and crouches, focuses on pulling her socks and boots back on.

‘Um.' Her tongue feels two sizes too big. She ignores it. 'What next?’

‘We hike back,’ Maria pauses when Ellie flops back, groaning. ‘No complaining, missy. Or I'll tell Tommy you_ loved_ going fishing with him and he’ll come round four times a week trying to set up another outing.’

Ellie groans again, but the threat looming overhead is too easy to imagine, too easy for Maria to put into motion. She heaves herself up. Taking her pack—glad they’re going down hill now because the hike up was already monstrous with an empty pack—Ellie falls into step next to Maria.

//

‘I wouldn’t actually do that,’ Maria says partway down the mountain. ‘Foist Tommy on you, I mean.’

Ellie sneaks a look at the woman from the side, under her lashes. She hitches her pack up a little higher, to help the aching in her back and shoulders. The cold of the river had numbed her blisters for a bit, but now they're biting at her heels and little toes. ‘I know.’

‘Alright. Good.’

They walk in silence a little longer. The crack of twigs and crunch of leaves beneath their feet, the calming call of songbirds and scatter of distant paws in the deep green of the forest around them. Occasionally, Ellie catches a glimpse of something from Before—a rusted car, half a collapsed bridge—and she walks more slowly, eyeing them suspiciously for sign of occupation. But nothing attacks them today—yet—and Ellie ignores the growing tension in her shoulders from more than just the weight of her pack.

‘If you need to talk about anything, you know I’m here for you. Right?’

Ellie starts, looks over to Maria who has slowed so that she can watch Ellie as closely as Ellie watches their surroundings. ‘I—yeah. I know.’

Maria watches her with a tilt of her head, a narrowing of her blue-green eyes. Not calling her out, not yet, but Ellie thinks she might soon. Doesn’t know what she’s waiting for, exactly.

‘Anything at all.’

‘Yes,’ Ellie says, very slowly, ‘Thank you.’

‘Things you don’t want to talk to Joel about, for example.’

Ellie sighs, stops. Taking it as a break, she sets her pack down on the ground and rolls out her shoulders, sets her hands on her hips when she turns to Maria. ‘What are you hinting at? Because I don’t know and I'd rather not be distracted while we're outside. Is this about puberty? Because that has well and truly struck and I had some really uncomfortable talks with the old Commander Broom-lip back in Boston about that stuff. Being a woman,’ Ellie rolls her eyes. ‘What an idiot.’

Maria grins. ‘I’ll assume you have a grasp on the basics. I was actually wondering,’ she says, tone cajoling, ‘if there are any boys you want to talk about?’

Ellie picks up her pack again. ‘No,’ she tells Maria firmly.

‘…Girls?’

She picks up the pace, cheeks flaring. Worse, she feels her neck heat up as well and she reckons Maria might be able to see that too. ‘No!’

//

‘Ellie, crushes are perfectly normal.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it!’

Maria’s laugh is high and sweet and Ellie nearly jogs to escape it. ‘I'll just start guessing, baby, you might as well tell me.’

//

‘Anna?’

‘I don’t even know an Anna.’

‘Sure you do. She lives in the settlement across the valley. Came to trade last summer.’

‘Oh _that_ Anna.’ Ellie rolls her eyes. Shakes her head, cutting a confused look across to Maria. ‘No. She was, like, thirty.’

‘I’m not saying actually date her,’ Maria laughs. ‘Just trying to see if you have a type.’

‘This is the worst day of my life,’ Ellie mutters, and she silently laments that she used up all her speed earlier when this is so. Much. Worse.

‘Okay. What about…Claire?’

‘Claire,’ Ellie shrugs. ‘She’s cute.’

‘But you’re not falling over yourself about her so she’s not the one,’ Maria nods to herself, like she's ticking off a checklist.

‘There isn’t a “one”.’

‘Sure, baby. Whatever you say.’

Ellie rolls her eyes hard, kicks out at a stick and resolves to silence. If she doesn’t give Maria any response to pick at, she’ll give up.

Right?

//

‘Perry?’

‘She’s _old_.’

‘Hey, watch it! She’s only a bit older than me,’ Maria scolds. Ellie grins over at her and Maria swats at her ear, not saying anything when Ellie ducks away, flinching, except for a sincere and quiet, ‘I’m sorry.’

Shame burns at Ellie's ears. She watches her feet as they walk. 'It’s fine.’

It earns her a minute of blissful quiet. Then,

‘…What about Toni?’

//

‘How’d it go, Ellie girl?’ One of Tommy’s crew calls out when they finally make it back to the settlement, Maria having mentioned every girl in the settlement and surrounding area except—suspiciously absent—for Dina. The one who calls out to them is a young woman, Danny, about twenty-five, with biceps Ellie reckons are as big as her head. Maria had mentioned her and her biceps about half an hour into the walk and, remembering that, Ellie flushes. 

Ignoring it, she calls back to the woman. 'Shit! Fish are fucking heavy!’

It earns her a laugh from the lot of them working away at the generators, and they yell out a few more hello’s and she waves to them, calls back a few crude phrases she’s learned from them, which is quelled under Maria’s disapproving eyebrow.

‘Sorry,’ Ellie heaves the apology toward her as she heaves the pack up onto the table here in the Shed, making it shake under the weight of it. Almost immediately, someone comes jogging out from the office with a half-dozen things Maria must look at _right away_, and it occurs to Ellie that Maria is a very, very busy woman, and that perhaps this mornings trip was more of a kindness than Maria had wanted Ellie to know, more time than Ellie probably deserved. The thought warms Ellie and she clears her throat, drawing Maria's attention.

‘Hey, you've gotta get back to work so I'm gonna,' she nods toward the door. 'Do you want me to take these to the kitchens?’

‘Please. And sorry for this,’ Maria says, ‘but I don’t have time to take mine so. Do you think you can manage?’

Ellie looks at the pack Maria offers her and groans but obligingly she hefts her own pack on her shoulders and lifts Maria’s in her arms. 

‘Thank you!’ Maria calls after her.

Ellie grunts.

//

She makes it to the kitchens, hot and sweating with effort, arms burning, and kicks a knock on the kitchen door. Any loving warmth that had been in her chest is replaced by the ungodly burn of exertion. There’s a ‘_Fucking finally_’ on her lips when she hears footsteps from within but the words die away when the door opens to show Dina standing there.

‘Dina,’ Ellie says. then, very coolly. Sweat drips from the tip of her nose to splash on the dirt. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey. Are you...alright?’

Ellie’s already hot red face flares hotter. Her hands, sweaty, slip on the pack. She scrambles to clutch it tighter, nods. ‘Yeah. Yes. Heavy. Got somewhere I can put this?’

‘Of course.' Dina waves her in and even helps Ellie put the packs on the counter, whistling appreciatively when she feels for herself how heavy they are. ‘Damn, Ellie!’

‘I know.’

‘Sit down, let me get you some water.’

Dina pushes her out of the kitchen, around to the bar. She pours water into two plastic cups and shoves one over to Ellie, clinking them together when Ellie offers.

‘Feeling better?’ she asks when Ellie downs the first water.

‘A bit. Top her up, Scotty,’ she asks quietly, sliding the cup over at Dina. Dina obliges. Ellie drinks again, sets her cup down on the bar and turns it around and around in her hands. She smiles a little shyly over at the other girl. ‘I have a question for you.’

‘Shoot.'

‘It’s very important.’

‘O-_kay._’ Dina drags the word out, sitting down on her bar stool. She frowns seriously, listening. ‘Yeah, go ahead.’

‘Dina…’ Ellie looks up from under her lashes. ‘Do I smell like fish?’

Dina blinks, then laughs. She shoves at Ellie, who rocks back with the movement, grinning. Dina shoves again and Ellie catches at her wrist, pulls it down and squeezes, grinning, before letting her go.

‘You’re such an asshole,’ Dina huffs, picking up their cups and the water. ‘I thought you were gonna say something important.’

‘It is important!’

‘No. You’re just an asshole,’ Dina says again, scowling, mock-serious over at her. Her eyes betray her, bright and amused. ‘Go on, get out of here. I now have a fish tonne of work to do, thanks to _someone.'_

‘I’ll help,’ Ellie offers immediately. Her muscles groan. She ignores them. ‘Least I can do, right?’

‘The least you could do is probably supervise,’

‘Oh I'll do that then.'

'_Asshole_.’

Ellie laughs and follows her into the kitchen.


	6. Brawny

Dina seeing ellie muscles for the first time

* * *

Chopping down a tree is hard work any time. In summer it’s nearly a death sentence, they joke on their lunch break, peeling specks of sap from their forearms and ruffling wood chips out of their hair. The team has been doing nothing but sitting for a half hour but still Ellie is dripping with sweat. She hooks her shirt up over her thumb, wipes her face with the collar. It slaps uncomfortably damp to her chest.

‘Ready for more?’ Tommy asks, grinning when Ellie groans. ‘C’mon Ellie-girl. Up on your feet.’ He helps her up, claps her hard on the shoulder and side steps out of the way, laughing, before she can hit him back.

‘It’s hot,’ she says. Okay, whines.

‘Yes ma’am, it is. Very astute.’ He rolls out his shoulders, eyes the trunk they’ve made good headway through. ‘C’mon—little while longer and we’ll have enough to finish the west paddock. Maybe we can even make a little gate. I like gates, Ellie.’

‘I know.’

‘There’s something so nice about it. I think it’s not risking breaking my neck every time I have to go over the fence.’

‘I get it, you’re old.’

Tommy glares. Touches a few fingers to the splash of grey at his temples. ‘I’m not old,’ he mutters, mostly to himself, and stalks off to grab his axe.

There’s a rustling in the fallen leaves behind them and Ellie turns, hand falling automatically to her rifle. It falls away as quickly when she sees her friends and Dina—lovely Dina—coming her way. They stop short, seat themselves on the fence some twenty paces back from the felling ground and wave and cat-call. Ellie laughs when she hears all of what they’re yelling.

‘Take off the flannel!’

‘Woo! Take it off!’

‘Don’t y’all have somethin’ better to do?’ Ellie calls back, hefting her axe up onto her shoulder.

‘No!’

‘Don’t tease us, Ellie!’

She sends an obscene gesture their way and makes to join Tommy by the tree when she hears Dina whistle, watches her waggle her eyebrows right at Ellie and a wave of confidence? Mischief? Stupidity? rushes through her.

Ellie sets the axe down. Rolls down her sleeves and shrugs her flannel off to tie it about her waist. the lot of them are silent then—some of them looking with interest between Dina and Ellie, most of them just staring at Ellie and her finished tattoo—and then Ellie rolls her t-shirt sleeves up to her shoulders and hefts her axe with a little extra effort. Harrison whistles and Georgie pretends to faint and Dina…Dina’s eyes widen and her jaw drops and Ellie watches as a warm flush darkens Dina's cheeks.

She winks to Dina, who pretends to fan her cheeks, and turns back to the tree - and to Tommy, who has been watching the interaction with growing amusement. 

‘What? Are we gonna stand around or are we gonna work?' Ellie asks, trying not to blush.

‘You tell me, little miss popular.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Does Joel know you have an entourage? Does he know about din-‘

‘Shut. Up.’ she growls, tips of her ears burning, and pushes past him, knocking him with her shoulder.

Tommy laughs, lets the knock spin him, and follows her to the tree.


	7. Coming Out

it'd be pretty cool to see your take on what it'd look like if Ellie were trying to explain to Joel that she likes Dina and also that she doesn't know if Dina likes her back.

* * *

‘There’ll be a trench in the carpet before long.’

Ellie stops, looks up at him. Her forehead is creased with concentration—and a little fear, though she’s always tried to hide that. ‘Huh?’

‘There’ll be a trench in the carpet before long,’ Joel says again and he points vaguely to the floor, setting his beer down on the counter. ‘You’re pacing.’

‘Oh.’ Ellie’s frown relaxes. Her whole body relaxes and she rolls her eyes, shakes her head with the tiniest fond grin. ‘Can’t you ever say something normal?’

Joel feigns offence, huffing. ‘That was plenty normal.’

‘Sure it was,’

‘I don't appreciate your tone.’

‘I don’t appreciate your…’ She squints, stomps when she can’t think of something clever. ‘Shit.’

‘Good one.’

‘Shut up, Joel.’

He laughs, swigs from the slightly cold beer bottle again. Ellie looks more relaxed now, and she’s definitely not pacing anymore, so he says, coming at the topic gently like he always does, ‘So what’s up?’

She doesn’t say anything for a while. Instead, Ellie makes her way into the kitchen. Joel turns so he’s facing her, the kitchen bench running a divider between them and when Ellie breathes in deeply and her face goes pale, Joel reaches down, plucks out another beer, and pushes it toward her.

‘I'm not eighteen yet.’

‘What am I, a cop?’ Joel grunts, waves at the beer. ‘Drink. Don’t drink. I don’t care.’

‘Super great dad advice there,’ Ellie drawls, a flush crawling up the back of her neck when she realises what she’s said.

Joel clears his throat, looks out the window to the view of the courtyard so they both have a little time to recoup. Neither of them say it that often outside of life or death situations.

_They probably should_, he thinks, sneaking a look over at his girl.

Hunched, shoulders broad and round, Ellie holds herself very still with her head ducked so he can’t see her face—just a hint of nose and the crease of her frown, which has grown heavier. She’s holding the unopened bottle between her fingers and turning it around and around on the counter so the grooved base makes a faint grinding noise—crr crr crr—with each twist.

‘Joel?’ she says, voice soft, and she sounds all of fourteen again.

‘Yeah, babygirl.’

Ellie’s shoulders hunch further. She abandons the beer bottle, drums her fingers on the bench. With a tilt to her head, tossing her shoulder length hair carelessly back, she says, ‘Joel, I—‘ and stops again. Opens and closes her mouth a few times.

When it gets to be too much, Joel clears his throat. ‘You know you can tell me anything, Ellie. You kill someone?’

Ellie snorts. ‘No. This is better than that,’ she says, and she sounds very sure of it but the way she squints up at Joel makes it seem like she isn’t sure he will feel the same.

She looks so goddam hopeful though that Joel’s heart twists.

‘Alright,’ he nods for her to go ahead, voice gravelly.

‘Alright,’ Ellie repeats. ‘You remember D-Dina,’ she says, tongue stuttering over the girls name.

Does he remember Dina?

Dina, who his notoriously quiet Ellie has mentioned minimum two times a day since her arrival? Dina, who Ellie is happy to wake up at dawn for? Dina, who Ellie tackled a clicker to protect? Dina, whose smile makes Ellie smile, who makes the whole compound a brighter place, who never has more than four bad words to say about a person, who helps erry without ever needing to be asked?

‘Sure, I’ve heard of her,’ Joel nods.

Ellie rolls her eyes. Drums her fingers. Turns the beer bottle around and around.

The dripping condensation from the bottle makes the glass slip and Joel reaches out when it teeters, steadies it. His hand settles on Ellie’s—smaller, but just as scarred, just as calloused as his own.

‘Go on,’ Joel prompts.

Ellie stares down at his hand on hers and gulps, twists her hand so she clings desperately to it. ‘I like her,’ she says, so raw and breathless Joel has to take a moment. He remembers the feeling; remembers a pressure in his chest like there were suddenly two hearts inside his rib cage. One his own, one hers. Ellie’s fingers open but Joel holds tighter; the shuddering breath she lets out is heavy with relief.

Her other hand comes over to press his between both of her own.

‘That’s...okay?’

‘Did you think I was just being nice to Ben?’ Joel asks her. Ellie’s nose crinkles even as she laughs. ‘It’s more than okay, Ellie. That’s - it’s wonderful,’ he says, and he means it. Time was, he would’ve told her there was no point. That love and relationships weren’t things that existed anymore. Not in any lasting way. But here in Jackson, where they’re…he’s reluctant as ever to say _safe_, but they're as safe as they can be in this world, he reckons…and with Ellie needing something more than unneeded reminders that yup, zombies are still a thing, he makes a small noise of reassurance and reaches over, cups her cheek. Wipes away a tear. ‘Ellie, kid, there’s not a damn thing in this world that could make me love you less. And it wouldn’t be that. Alright?’

Ellie sniffles, nods. ‘Yeah.’

‘Good.’

He is loath to let go of her but he does, just long enough to make his way around the bench and take her into a big hug. They stand there for some time, long enough for Ellie to cry and her tears to dry and then a little longer. Finally, she pulls back with a final sniffle and mumbles something about washing her face, disappearing into the bathroom.

With a faint squeal of the tap, Joel hears the pipes whack away under the floorboards and the sound of rushing water. He leaves her to get herself back under control and sets about making some lunch for them both.

When she comes out to collapse into the sofa, face a little drawn and wet around the neck and hairline where she didn’t dry in her rush, he pops a sandwich in her lap and steps over her legs to sit next to her.

‘So. Dina.’

Ellie’s smile is shaky but it’s there. Joel throws an arm over the back of the couch and, after a few minutes, Ellie leans back into it.

‘Yeah.’

‘You told her yet?’

She chokes on her first bite of sandwich. Joel has to thump her on the back to help get it out. ‘Jesus fucking _Christ_, Joel,’ she coughs, voice hoarse. ‘Don’t say shit like that!’

‘Like what?’

‘Of course I haven’t told her!’

Joel frowns. ‘Well, why not?’

‘Because—because she doesn’t like me!’

‘And how do you know that?’ he asks, and as Ellie tells him about the boy Dina is dating, and about how she couldn’t possibly because Dina is smart and funny and clever and so so beautiful and just the best person and friend in Jackson, he thinks about how often Dina comes over and how often he’s found them in the same bed, and the way Dina watches Ellie and touches her mindlessly, and when Ellie turns to him and nods decisively like she’s said something really convincing, he shrugs. ‘Alright, well, she’s missing out.’

Ellie blinks, flushes. ‘Shut up.’

‘She knows you can shoot a runner in the head from a hundred yards, right?’

‘That was one time,’

‘It was pretty good, that’s all,’ Joel shrugs again. He ruffles her hair, enjoys the way she grumbles and complains but doesn't really move away. ‘Thanks for telling me, kid.’

Ellie shrugs, mumbles something or other about knowing for a while and love you and feeling safe, and his heart clenches like she’s just reached right in and squeezed it. She leans into his side, using his shoulder as a pillow.

‘I don’t want to do anything about it,’ she tells him in a whisper. ‘I kind of just realised? And I don’t…I don’t want to lose her.’

‘Whatever you decide,’ Joel assures her, ‘I’ll be right here.’


	8. Summer Tunes

Could you do a fic with Ellie and Dina where Dina asks Ellie to teach her guitar while being flirty during it but Ellie is oblivious to it

* * *

‘Are you making fun of me?’ Ellie asks her, sounding entirely unpeturbed by the thought of it. Entirely unpeturbed by most anything, laying back on the hot dry grass beneath the pale wash sky of burnt blue, a wide hat plopped on her head courtesy of her uncle Tommy. She nudges the brim of the hat up so one hazel eye peers out at Dina and her nose crinkles when the sunlight hits her eyes.

‘Would I ever make fun of you?’

‘Often,’ Ellie nods.

Dina rolls her eyes. Drops down onto the sun-baked grass next to Ellie. Her heart gives a little flutter when her friend immediately plops the hat on her head, seemingly content to suffer the sun in her place.

‘Thanks.’

Ellie hums in response.

‘I’m not making fun of you this time, okay? I just think it’d be nice to learn how to play.’

‘What’ll you give me?’

Dina blinks. ‘What?’

‘If I teach you how t’ play.’ Her words are syrupy slow and warm, more rumble in her chest Dina can translate because she’s leaning against her than spoken word. ‘What’ll you give me?’

Dina thinks about Ellie’s big, calloused hands and how gently they pluck at the old guitar she and Joel had coaxed back to life; she thinks about her singing, something Ellie had lied about, told her to her face that she couldn't sing and had only revealed recently a surprisingly soft, sweet voice. She thinks about summer sweat and peeling off Ellie’s top shirt to get to just the singlet beneath. She feels her face grow hot from more than just the attention of the sun.

‘Whatever you want.’ She’s careful to dump lust and suggestion heavily into her tone, Ellie being the oblivious sort that she is.

It doesn’t get her so much as a twitch.

‘Nice. I’ll think about it. A favour for now, I guess.’


	9. Dinner Date

Joel mercilessly teasing Ellie about how in love with Dina she is. Pretty pleaseeee, &, 

Ellie surviving through Dina being invited over for dinner by Joel 

* * *

‘Hey, ain’t that your jacket Dina is wearing?’

They're standing out by the paddocks, sweltering as one does in the summer, and it takes a moment for Ellie's mind to click over from the absolute emptiness she's trained it into when Joel tries to tell her about aviaries or whatever the hell he's talking about today. His mild comment hits and Ellie jerks into wakefulness, body snapping to its full height. She then tries, unsuccessfully, to look cool and unaffected. ‘What about it?’

‘It’s your favourite,’ Joel says in a slow way, like something is dawning in his mind. Ellie wants to make fun of him, say it takes a long time for him to compute basic information or something, but the information in question is her…and her jacket…and a certain pretty girl headed their way. ‘Oh. _Oh_,’ he says.

‘Joel,’

‘Hey, I get it. Won’t let your old man touch the jacket but your girl shivers once and suddenly you’re handing it over.’

‘You wanted to _cut it open_—‘

‘You were _bleeding_.’

‘You’re gonna bleed,’ Ellie mutters, hand slipping to the knife on her belt. It makes him laugh, clap a hand on her shoulder. ‘And she’s not my girl.’

‘Yet?’

‘At all.’ She scuffs the tip of her boot in the dirt, shrugs. His hand falls away at the gesture. ‘She doesn’t like me like that.’

‘Have you asked?’

‘Are you mad?’

‘Let’s ask,’ he says, and Ellie’s eyes widen in horror when he lifts a hand to wave to Dina, now halfway across the gardens toward them. ‘Morning, Dina!’

‘Hi, Joel!’

‘Joel,’ Ellie hisses, ‘don’t you dare!’

‘What? Be friendly?’

‘You know exactly what!’

‘Don’t you worry about a thing, kiddo. I know what I'm doing.’

‘I’m gonna _murder_—oh, uh, hey, hi Dina.’

‘Hey, Ellie.’ Dina lets her feet carry her right up close until they’re hugging and Ellie avoids looking at Joel’s grin—and smug stupid face—when her cheeks heat up and she awkwardly pats Dina’s back. Dina steps back finally but keeps her hand on Ellie’s forearm, fingers stroking the patch of skin right where Ellie has folded her sleeves back. ‘Thanks for letting me borrow your jacket. It smells really nice—what is it?’

‘Uh. My shampoo, probably.’

‘Mm, it’s nice.’

‘Cool,’ Ellie chokes out. ‘Joel, we should go. Do that thing.’

‘Sure, that thing, absolutely.' He agreed too quickly. Despair, mortification, implodes in Ellie's chest. She wants the sky to cloud over and lightning to sizzle her from the top of her head to the toes. Right now. 'Quick question, Dina,’

‘Joel,’

‘Sure, what’s up?’ Dina says with a smile, though she looks a little confused by Ellie’s obvious tension.

‘Are you—‘

‘Joel.’

‘—free tomorrow night? See, me ‘n’ Ellie found a pot and I convince ben to teach me to make a chilli. Plenty enough for four. You want in?’

‘Ooh, double date?’ Dina grins. ‘Count me in! I’ll bring my winning personality.’

‘Perfect,’ Joel nods, and he helps guide Ellie away when her feet are reluctantly to move away from Dina. He bends down as they leave, whispers in her ear. ‘Might have more of a chance than you think, kiddo.’

‘Oh shut up.’

//

‘And then,’ Joel crows, and Ellie buries her face deeper into her arms, nearly sinking below the table, ‘Then she—get this—pops the bottle cap off with her teeth, gets the rag in there, and she,’ he stops there, hooting with laughter, clutches at his belly.

Dina waits, grinning, but Ellie knows that he’s too amused by himself to continue.

‘I dropped it, okay?’ she tells Dina.

‘S-she dropped it,’ Joel laughs, slapping the table.

‘I had a goddamn cocktail in my hand like I had been begging for months,' Ellie says, recounting the story perfectly and with the flat intonation of someone who has heard the story time and again and hated it every time. 'And the moment I had it, I dropped it.’

Dina snorts, whips a hand up to cover her face. It can’t hold back everything though and after a second she laughs again, right into Ellie’s face. ‘What happened next?’ she asks, laughter crackling up her words like a human version of radio static.

‘Oh, well, then I shot the bottle,’ Ellie says with a shrug. ‘It worked. Not as cool though.’

Dina grins over at her. ‘You will never let that down, will you?’

‘I _would have_ if Joel didn’t insist on telling everyone we meet about it.’

‘Now, now, Ellie,’ Joel says soothingly, now that he’s finished laughing. ‘I don’t tell _everyone_.’

‘Oh no?’ Ellie turns on him. Ticks off a finger. ‘Uncle Tommy. I won’t count Maria because they’re married.’

‘You could count Maria and not Tommy,’ Dina suggests.

‘You’re right. I'll start again. Maria, and also Tommy. Ben and Alice. Perry.’ She ticks off the fingers as she works her way through the long list of names and ignores the way Joel winks at Dina like he's sharing this inside joke with her, his scruff not quite hiding his grin. Ellie isn't sure if the joke is the story, or the way he gets her riled up in seconds. 'Shorty. Tin-can Laura. Red. Maxine. Theodore, after I _specifically_ asked you not to.’

‘Aw, c'mon now, he thought it was funny,’

‘Yeah, I know he did because he called me Butterfingers Ellie for a whole month.’

‘Until you kicked him in the jewels in front of his entire crew,’ Joel points out, tipping his beer bottle her way in a _cheers_.

‘Wait—you did what?’ Dina’s eyes are bright and delighted. She hooks her hand around Ellie’s wrist. ‘You’ve gotta tell me that story,’ she insists.

Ellie flushes, looking down at the point of contact. Is she dirty? Sweaty? Dina hasn’t let her go yet—and she remembers vaguely showering before Dina came over—so she thinks it’s okay. Maybe. Probably. Can Dina feel her heart rate climbing? Is she healthy? Is her pulse jumping like crazy, or does it just _feel_ that way? 

‘Er. Okay.’

‘I’ll see how the cake’s comin’ along,’ Joel rumbles and he scrapes his chair back and leaves, dropping a wink over Dina’s head to Ellie, who ignores it as best she can. Her flush burns hotter and Dina is so close there's no way she doesn't see it. She doesn't make comment about it, though, just continues to watch Ellie with wide eyes.

‘It wasn’t a big deal. i just kicked him.’

‘Theodore, the leader of that bandit crew up Jagged Way?’

‘Um. Yes.’

‘Just happened to kick him.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Ellie shrugs. ‘He’s not so bad a dude, but he deserved that. It was more than just him calling me Butterfingers.’

‘I figured.’ Dina makes herself comfortable, which seems to include firming her hold on Ellie’s wrist. ‘Keep going.’


	10. Monopoly, or, The Game That Encourages Murder

Ellie and dina trying to be sneaky but Joel still catching them.

* * *

‘What are y’all muttering about?’

‘The inequality of the current system of government,’ Ellie tells him, tone smooth and guileless in the way that means she’s straight up lying to him.

‘Okay.’

‘It’s your turn, Joel.’

‘Okay,’ he says again and he takes the dice from Dina. The two of them sit there, smiling sweetly at him, and he’s already stressed out of his mind trying to get out of fucking jail—the worst part being that Ellie came up with the bright idea of anyone in jail having to sit under the table, an overturned seat hanging in front of them so they’re “behind bars”—that he almost misses the sly little look and mutter that passes between them.

‘Six. That means I’m out of jail, right?’

‘Good job. It only took you nine turns.’

Joel flips Ellie off, making Dina cackle, and he crawls out from under the table to retake his spot at the board. He rolls again—family rules saying he gets to move now that he’s free—and moves one, two, three spaces so that he can pay Ellie an exorbitant fee to stay in her hotel. He's pretty much broke by this point and he's debating whether to hope for another hotel so he can leave this _fucking__ game_ already, or if he wants to try and win.

When it comes round to his turn again, he lands on community chest and something—a muffled snort, the way Ellie shifts in her seat, anticipating something—makes him look over at the girls. They’re staring at him like hounds after a fox and the longer his hand hangs over the community pile, the wider their frankly terrifying smiles grow, and the more certain he grows that they have done something. What, he doesn’t know. But something.

‘Pick up a card, Joel,’ Ellie suggests sweetly. Far too sweetly.

‘I might pass.’

‘You landed on the square.’

‘You have to pick a card,’ Dina nods, smiling just as sweetly. ‘Those are the rules.’

Joel narrows his eyes at them. ‘Alright.’ He lowers his hand. Taps the pile. There’s nothing immediately off about it but they’re watching and grinning and Joel knows he can’t put it off forever so he turns the card over and—

‘You’ve got to be kidding me! Jail! Again? Fuck you, Monopoly! And you!’ Joel jabs a finger at Ellie. ‘How did you do this?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I get two community cards and they’re both go to jail? I don’t fucking think so!’ Joel narrows his eyes into hard suspicious lines. ‘Wait—you _knew_.’ He snatches up the entire pile and flips it, yells pure rage when he sees they’ve all been replaced by identical cards. GO TO JAIL. GO TO JAIL. GO TO

‘Go to hell, Ellie!’


	11. Sharing Music

if you’re still taking prompts would you write about ellie and dina listening to/talking about music

* * *

Ellie flops onto the floor, starfishing her arms and legs. She fumbles with the earpiece for a moment and, realising that Dina hasn’t joined her, frowns over at her friend.

‘What are you doing?’

‘What are _you_ doing?’ Dina shoots back, laughing.

‘This is the optimal way of listening to music. Trust me,’ Ellie insists.

Dina tilts her head to the side, regarding Ellie. There's no telling what she sees in her but after a second, Dina shrugs and sits, lays down so the two of them are shoulder to shoulder. Ellie huffs, pulls her arm out from beneath her.

‘You don’t want to cuddle?’ Dina teases, pouts an exaggerated pout when Ellie glances over.

‘No. This is serious business. I need you to focus.’

‘And I can’t focus when you’re touching me,’ Dina nods. ‘It's so true, you know me so well.’

Ellie rolls her eyes. ‘I can ask someone else to listen—’ She lies, knowing full well she wouldn’t share this with anyone else.

‘No! No, I’m focused, I’m here,’ Dina shoves at her. ‘Give me the earphone already.’

Ellie clicks into the music device, scrolls to a familiar name of the song and presses play. Whoever had owned this in a past life had only been interested in orchestral music—or only kept orchestral music on this device, at least—and Ellie has listened to heaps of it but this one… It always makes her shiver when the sweeping line of violins start up and today is no different. Except for the fact that Dina is laying next to her and listening to the same music. She closes her eyes, lets the music wash over her, and does her best not to worry about it, about whether Dina will be bored by it.

After a minute or so, she feels Dina shift. Nerves pop and spark in Ellie's stomach, but Dina settles again. And then Ellie feels it - a faint, delicate touch against her right hand. She opens it, lets Dina tangle their fingers together.

Eyes still closed, Ellie is torn between the music and the feeling of Dina’s hand playing with her own, her fingers twining and stroking and fiddling and examining the scars and nicks that score Ellie’s skin. Ellie shivers a full bodied shiver when Dina’s fingers skate over the centre of her palm and Dina pauses, settles.

‘Sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I get fidgety when I listen to music.’

‘You’re,’ Ellie clears her throat. ‘You’re good,’ she tells Dina, just as quietly.

‘Okay.’ A moment passes. Then, as the music swells, Dina swirls her fingers over Ellie’s palm again and laughs at the way it makes her shiver.


	12. The First Serenade

Ellie serenading Dina if you feel inspired to write that of course!

* * *

They’re sitting together in Ellie’s room, blankets strewn at the foot of her bed. It’s far too hot for them right now and Ellie is just trying to breathe through the summer heat and also how hot Dina looks in jean shorts and one of Ellie’s flannels, her hair sticking to her neck.

‘It’s so hot.’

‘I’m,’ Ellie breathes out. ‘I’m aware.’

‘We need,’ Dina looks up at the ceiling, starfished on the floor as she is. ‘Something to distract ourselves.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know.’ Then, in a specially curated tone to sound like the thought has only just occurred to her, Dina says, ‘Oh hey, you have a guitar. You could play something.’

‘Very casual.’

Dina flips her middle finger up, grins.

‘What do you want to hear?’ Ellie asks, trying her best to make the guitar levitate over to her. When that doesn’t work, she groans and stands to fetch it.

‘I don’t know. Anything.’

‘Okay.’ Ellie more or less collapses onto the floor next to Dina, unable to make it back to the bed. Her knee nudges against Dina’s thigh and even though the contact is blisteringly hot, neither of them move away. Ellie’s tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth and she flushes, glances over at Dina from under her lashes.

Dina is still grinning at her but it’s melted into a crooked, enraptured smile. Eyes on Ellie. ‘Well?’

‘Joel did teach me some stuff,’ Ellie says quietly. ‘Here’s Wonderwall.’


	13. That Strictly Best Friend Love

Dina would be like “ I love you please kiss me” and Ellies the type of person to be like “AS FRIENDS OR..?” I swear lmao

* * *

‘Hey Georgie, thanks for getting me,’ Ellie says quietly, following her friend into the garden behind greenhouse six. It’s an overgrown tangle, which is only permitted because it’s where the squash monstrosity lives and grows and because it’s basically smack bang in the centre of the settlement, meaning that if raiders ever did get to this point, they’re all already screwed. That’s Ellie’s reasoning, anyway. ‘Where is she?’

Ellie scans the garden. Beyond the shift and sway of bodies dancing to the music that crackles from the radio, she picks out flashes of colour and detail as she searches intently for Dina—the plastic lanterns, the fragments of broken CDs repurposed into glittering decorations, the overturned buckets and crates scattered around the room, the paint splattered over the wall in reds too close to blood for Ellie’s comfort.

‘I don’t see—‘ Ellie cuts herself off, lips flattening with displeasure, and with another quiet thank you to her friend she steps in. Skirting the room, not wanting to disturb the others and not wanting to be slowed down, Ellie makes it to dina’s side and takes Frank Larkin’s hand from where it has strayed to Dina’s ass and _squeezes_ until he yelps, until she can feel something just about to pop. When he tries to tug away from her, he seems decidedly less interested in Dina, which Ellie counts as a victory and she guides her friend behind her and out of his immediately line of sight. 

Dina doesn’t seem to mind. Or notice. 

‘Evenin’, Frank.’

‘Ellie,’ he greets her just as tersely. ‘Mind letting go of my hand there?’

‘Depends on what you’re planning to do with it, I reckon,’ she tells him, but after a moment she lets his hand drop.

Rubbing at it, Frank glares at her. Seeing the way she glares right back, he must see that it was a bad decision on his part because he takes a step back. ‘We were just dancin’,’

‘Yeah and you know if she weren’t drunk as shit she wouldn’t give you the time of day, so keep walking, Larkin.’

‘Keep being a bitch, Williams,’ he mutters as he slinks away and Dina—Dina who has since draped herself across Ellie’s back and started swaying to the radio’s safety reminder—perks up.

‘Shut the fuck up, Frank! Shut up! Don’t you call her a bitch!’

‘Alright slugger,’ Ellie murmurs, sighing. She turns, hoists Dina off her feet and just about carries her out of the garden party.

A full minute of walking—Dina refusing to help since Ellie is doing such a good job of it—brings them to a bench and Ellie sets her down on it, has to keep unwinding Dina’s arms from around her neck. After the third time, Ellie kneels and holds both of Dina’s hands in hers.

‘You are,’ Dina says, slurs, looking down at her with unfocused eyes, ‘like, you’re _so_ pretty.’

‘Thank you. How much did you drink?’

‘Oh, like,’ Dina’s head lolls to the side in an uncoordinated tilt as she considers the question. ‘A lot.’

‘Okay then.’

‘Are you mad at me?’ Dina asks, trying to twist one hand free of Ellie’s gentle hold. When it feels like she might actually hurt herself, Ellie lets her go and she can’t find it in herself to be surprised that Dina’s hand immediately settles on her shoulder, winding her fingers into Ellie’s hair.

‘I’m not mad at you. Do you wanna try walking again?’ Dina nods and with Ellie’s help she stands. ‘I'll take you to your room,’ Ellie tells her, which was a mistake because Dina scowls and sits again, tucks her ankle around the leg of the bench so Ellie can’t make her stand again. ‘Oh my god,’ Ellie breathes. Rubbing at her forehead, she crouches again. Doesn’t even bother trying to avoid Dina’s reaching hands. ‘Dina,' she asks, in a way that she thinks sounds rather patient. 'What’s wrong?’

‘You’re mad at me,’

‘I’m not.’

‘If you weren’t mad, you’d,’ Dina blinks, looking a bit unsure. ‘You’d take me home.’

‘I am going to take you home.’

‘Ellie, Ellie,’ Dina brushes clammy fingers over her cheek. Misses and nearly jabs Ellie in the eye. But then her palm settles and she pats once, strokes the tiniest bit with her fingers. ‘Ellie,’ she whispers again, ‘to _your_ home.’

‘Do you want to come to my room?’ Ellie offers, too tired to even bother deciphering what Dina might be thinking.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Dina says, with a teasing smile, slipping forward on the chair closer to Ellie, so close their noses are nearly brushing. ‘Also,' she whispers, 'I’m gonna puke.’

//

After Ellie helps her to the garden bed, and studiously avoids listening to Dina retch as she scrapes Dina’s hair off her face and rubs soothing circles over her back, Ellie more or less carries Dina to her house. She knocks until Joel opens the door, rubbing sleep grit out of his eyes.

‘Whoa, what happened to her?’

‘Definitely not alcohol?’

A smile flickers at the corner of Joel’s lips and then is gone. ‘Got it. Come on, I’ll get her some water, you get her on the couch.’

‘Thanks, Joel, you’re the best.’

He grunts.

Ellie readjusts her grip on Dina, grimaces when Dina buries her face in Ellie’s neck. ‘Please don’t puke on me.’ Dina mumbles something unintelligible and not in English and Ellie rubs her back. ‘Almost time to sleep, stay awake just a bit more, okay? Will you do that for me?’

Dina nods, maybe, and Ellie crosses the room, eases her down onto the couch. She stops her when Dina immediately makes to lie down.

‘Joel’s coming with some water, stay awake a little longer.’

‘M’kay,’ Dina slurs. ‘You’re taking care of me,’ she says with a little wonder. 'That’s so nice of you.’

‘You’d do the same for me.’ Ellie smiles down at her, smoothes a kink of hair back from her face. It’s kind of endearing to see Dina like this, now that she’s passed the puking phase. She takes the cup Joel hands her, nods when he pats her shoulder and leaves her to it. ‘Here, Dina. Drink this.’

‘I—think I’ve had enough,’

‘Oh now you realise,’ Ellie mutters quietly, just to herself. More loudly, she says, ‘It’s water.’ Dina turns her head away and Ellie is tired enough to want to not push it but she’d rather Dina not wake up with a hangover to top all hangovers so she persists, cupping Dina’s cheek. ‘Please, for me?’

Dina’s eyes go suspiciously wet. ‘For you,’ she agrees, like she's promising to drink poison and sacrifice herself or some dramatic shit like that, and she chugs the water down, throws the cup to the ground. The plastic clatters a few times before rolling under the armchair across the room.

‘Good call on the plastic, Joel,’ Ellie murmurs, again to herself. Then, to Dina, ‘Good job, thank you.’

‘You,’ Dina pauses, presses a hand to her chest and swallows down a burp. Ellie hopes it was a burp. ‘You’re welcome. I love you.’

Ellie’s heart lurches at the words, the least slurred of everything Dina has said since she collected her. Without meaning to, Ellie smiles to her like she never dares to when Dina isn’t drunk, with all the tenderness and esteem and care she normally keeps carefully in check. Dina’s eyes widen. ‘I love you too,’ Ellie tells her. ‘Go to sleep now, okay?’

//

Dina wakes Ellie in the morning, smelling strongly of Ellie’s shampoo and half a tube of toothpaste.

‘Hey,’ Ellie grunts. ‘Morning.’

‘Morning, hero.’

There’s an almighty crick in her neck and Ellie groans, straightens from her bed on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Rubbing at her neck, she sighs with relief when it pops and she rolls out her shoulders.

‘I’m getting too old for that.’

‘Eighteen,’ Dina grins. ‘Positively ancient.’

Ellie returns the grin, heaves herself up onto the couch and stretches her arms over her head, yawns. Her hands flop down into her lap and she blinks her eyes open again, bleary and a little blurry, and catches the tail end of a slightly flustered look Dina throws to the ceiling.

‘Hey, you good?’

‘Hmm?’

‘No hangover?’

‘Big one,’ Dina tells her with a grimace. ‘But the water helped—and Joel made me the greasiest breakfast ever, so I’m well on my way to recovery.’

Ellie frowns. ‘Where’s my breakfast?’

‘You slept through it.’

‘What the fuck?’ Ellie breathes, offended. ‘See if I come get you again if that’s how you treat me.’

Dina tilts her head. It’s wildly unfair how pretty the smile she directs at Ellie is; soft and sweet and slow, brimming with affection until it overflows and a little dimple pops in her right cheek. ‘You would,’ she says knowingly.

Ellie breathes out a shaky breath, wipes her palms on the coarse fabric of her jeans. ‘Yeah, well, I’m dumb like that. Never learn,’ she laughs quietly. Her laugh dies when Dina switches from her seat on the coffee table to the couch right next to her.

‘I love it about you,’ Dina tells her, eyes bright. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

‘I—well,’ Ellie blinks. pulls herself sharply under control, ignoring her sweating palms and thundering heart. ‘Someone’s gotta look after you.’

‘My hero,’ Dina says again, quietly, and she leans in until their shoulders brush together. Her eyes dip for a second before returning to Ellie’s eyes and Ellie thinks distantly that she must be very close for her to be able to see the flecks of lighter brown through Dina’s iris’s. ‘How about a kiss for your trouble?’ she whispers, and when Ellie’s head wobbles a little—a nod, hopefully—Dina leans in until her breath puffs warm over the corner of Ellie’s lips.

Ellie’s eyes flutter closed. She curls her hands into tight fists in her lap to keep from reaching for Dina. Skin tingling, when Dina’s lips actually press to the corner of her mouth, it feels like an electric shock right through her and Ellie’s breath catches with an embarrassingly loud hitch.

Dina’s nose skates over her cheek before she pulls back.

‘Thank you, Ellie.’

‘I -,’ Ellie licks her lips, shivers when her tongue brushes against where Dina had kissed her. ‘I wasn’t about to let anything happen to you,’ she says, avoiding Dina’s gaze and instead watching her hands, picking at a loose stitch on her jeans. ‘You’re my best friend, I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt.’


	14. Honeysuckle Daydreams

if you're up to it, maybe dina and Ellie picking wildflowers (bc that's the cutest and gayest thing I can think of) and maybe making flower crowns??

* * *

Following a week of rain, the air hangs thick and swelteringly warm around them, sweat and the humid air making an aqueduct of Ellie’s spine as she picks her way through the new forest. Her breath is shallow; the air is sweet with honeysuckle bursts, which she can see growing red in twining clumps beneath the trees. Ellie carefully steps over one of the bushes and scours the undergrowth for any of the flowers they can actually use for decoration. Daisies, wildflowers, that sort of thing.

‘Do these actually have honey in them?’

Dina crouches by the thicket of honeysuckle, twists one of the small red flowers off so she can examine it.

‘Uh. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know that it’s actually _honey,_ probably isn't, but the nectar tastes sweet.’ Ellie steps back to her, tosses a branch away so she doesn’t step on it and crack it. ‘Here, like this.’ Ellie kneels, jean-covered knee sinking into the dark, rich soil made soft from the heavy rains. The honeysuckle is velvety under her fingertips and she twists, pops one flower from its vine and turns it, pops the base of the flower between her lips. It’s exactly as she remembers it; a tiny pop of sweet over her tongue, instant and strong, and then nothing. Just the odd grass flavour of the petals. She blows the flower back out onto her palm, brushes it away against her jeans. ‘Just like that. Easy peasy.’

Dina nods and, curious, copies her. Her eyes widen at the taste—surprise and delight makes her grin, too. She tries to blow it out like Ellie had but the flower sticks to her lip and when she brushes it away, laughing, it just shifts to her chin.

‘Here, let me.’ Ellie catches the flower between forefinger and thumb, doesn’t dare linger despite how soft Dina’s skin is under her fingers. ‘Um.’ Ellie curls her fingers into her palm and she pulls her hands back. ‘We should keep looking for flowers,’ she whispers after a second. Her hand clenches at her side, fingertips tingling. Ellie pushes to her feet and turns away to hide the very faint flush she can feel beginning to burn on her cheeks.

Plucking at her shirt where it clings to her wet back under her basket pack, Ellie adjusts herself. Casts a shrewd eye over the forest instead of watching Dina, who she can hear standing and making her way closer. ‘Maria said there’s a clearing a little ways north.’

‘How’d you get stuck with a job like this?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Picking flowers,’ Dina says, following Ellie and accepting her offered hand when they clamber over a huge fallen log. ‘I would’ve thought you’d be out with the buck party.’

‘The hunting party, you mean?’

‘I know what I said,’ Dina tells her, grinning. Ellie rolls her eyes.

‘It was a bad joke, I was giving you some leeway.’

‘I don’t need it. I insist the joke was a good one.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Ellie says, with an obvious note in her tone that says she disagrees. ‘Anyway, I asked to help with this.’

‘Really?’

‘Mhm.’

‘Why’s that?’

Ellie hesitates. Her stomach clenches when she realises she can’t say to Dina “_I saw your name on this list and signed up in the hopes I could hang out with you_” and so in a rush she says, ‘I’m really good at making flower crowns.’

The moment she says it, she knows she's screwed; sooner or later, they'll return with the flowers they've collected and they will sit together at the sun-warmed tables outside the Hall and Dina will see that Ellie is in fact, generously speaking, merely passable at making flower crowns. And Dina will tease her about it and Ellie will have to bluster, or else Dina will help her and touch her hands with her own to move them properly to weave and knot the flowers, and no matter how it turns out, Ellie has walked herself into even more trouble. The good kind, at least. 

She looks over to Dina, who braids a few small purple flowers into the end of her plait. 

The best kind of trouble, maybe.


	15. The Swimming Lesson

you should totally write a short story of dina teaching ellie how to swim

* * *

Summer is… It’s really something else in Jackson. It’s swelteringly hot, first of all, in a clinging, slimed way, with the air thick and tasting like swamp water. The mosquitos never quit and Ellie has stripped to a singlet and boxer shorts and it’s still too fucking hot.

‘Joel,’ she whines.

A grunt.

Ellie tilts her head to the side. Even that is too much. Joel is sitting at the kitchen table with her, on the opposite side. They’d been on the couch earlier but sitting on fabric made it worse. Now they’re suffering, sweating, in companionable silence.

Mostly.

She’s seventeen and she cannot handle this fucking heat.

‘Joel.’ It’s too hot to be mad so she just grunts his name again.

‘What.’

‘’s too hot.’

‘Swear t’ god, Ellie,’ he grumbles, pops one eye open. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

‘I don’t know. Something?’

‘Newsflash, kiddo. It’s hot. It’ll stay hot-’

‘Don’t say it.’

‘- for another couple months.’

‘God.’ Ellie sinks in her chair, winces as her skin peels from the hot plastic. Her head lolls back on her neck over the backrest of the seat and she stares up at the ceiling. ‘This is hell.’

‘Sure ain’t heaven.’ He swigs from his beer, which must be gross by now but he’s at the stage where he makes a big show about how great it is to tease her. ‘Ah. Nothin’ like a nice cold beer.’

‘That’s gotta be lukewarm.’

‘Nope. Ice cold,’ he lies, smacking his lips. ‘Delicious.’

Ellie sighs.

A low hum, a buzz, starts somewhere around her left ear and whines in circles through the air. It takes her a minute to find but when it lands on the skin of her shoulder she slaps at the mosquito, whoops into the heavy, still air when she sees the smear across her palm.

‘Oh gross, look how big that one is.’ She wipes her hand off on her hip, on the singlet.

A drop of sweat crawls down her spine, making a run for it toward the cooler ground. Smart. Feels gross, though.

Ellie considers joining it when she has a spark of a thought. A brilliant thought.

‘Hey.’

Joel grunts.

‘You know, I still don’t know how to swim.’

In the still air she can practically feel his eyes pop open. ‘Huh,’ he huffs. ‘That’s true.’

‘Seems like a good time to learn.’

Joel tilts his head to the side. Then to the other side. He fixes her with an annoyingly direct stare. ‘You should ask someone else.’

‘But I’m asking you.’

‘And you should ask someone else.’

‘But I’m asking you,’ Ellie says again. Is the heat driving her mad, or Joel? ‘What do you mean ask someone else?’

‘I mean,’ he scratches at his neck, the bristling beard that cannot be helping his mild heat stroke. ‘How often d’you hang out with the other kids?’ Ellie groans. ‘Now hang on now, just hear me out. Y’all could make a day of it. Cross round the other side of the lake, go fishin, that sort of thing.’

‘Super,’ Ellie mutters. ‘Why can’t you teach me?’ she asks but she can see there’s no point—he’s settled into the idea like a comfortable armchair and he won’t be budged. ‘I don’t even know who can swim.’

As she says it, a memory of Dina resurfaces. A cheerful grin, wet hair plastered to her cheeks, her neck, her collar. Shirt similarly plastered. She’d swum out to a floating box in the lake that had come down from the waterfalls, towed it back to shore for their team. 

‘Dina knows,’ Ellie says quietly and Joel grunts.

‘Great. Good. Ask her.’

Ellie sits a while longer, entertaining the idea. Pretty Dina with a face full of smiles, walking her through how to swim, brushing up close to her in the water. Then, she factors in the last time she was in the water and fear stoppers up her lungs with hot summer swamp air and Ellie struggles to suck in enough of a breathe. This is a bad idea, she realises, thinking about her inevitable shaking, trembling, general stupidity.

‘No. Nah. That’s not a good idea. I’ll just wait until you’re up for it.’

Joel takes another pull from his bottle. Sets it down on the table. ‘Is that so?’

//

She’s standing in front of Dina’s door and she’s pretty sure it’d be better to knock now than have someone discover her standing her like an idiot. It may just take another moment or two to work up the nerve.

‘Morning, Ellie,’

Ellie twists, nods to Jesse. He’s a little older than her—nineteen, she thinks, she’s pretty sure anyway because, yeah, he shared his party with Dina’s eighteenth—and he hitches his backpack onto his shoulders and closes the door to his room behind him.

‘What’s up?’

‘Sarah asked me to go hunting,’ he says, and he’s restrained about it but Ellie can see how excited he is, how eager. She understands—ever since coming to the settlement, the “kids” have gone out less and less and she understands, really she does, but she survived a fuckton to get here so it’s kind of. Stupid.

‘Awesome.’

‘Oh shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t,’ he starts an apology, probably thinking her strained voice is because she wants to go hunting in his place and it’s easy then to grin up at him and punch him in the shoulder.

‘It’s cool. Wouldn’t want to be in your place—too fucking hot out there.’

‘You’re telling me,’ he agrees, smile coloured with relief. ‘I'm already sweating,’ he tells her, lifts both arms to show off the circles in his pits.

‘Oh gross dude,’

‘What? You don’t like my manly stench?’ When Ellie recoils, nose crinkling in exaggerated disgust, Jesse laughs and lunges for her, wraps an arm around her neck.

‘I’ll stab you, Jesse! Let me go!’

He just laughs again and Ellie jabs her elbow in his ribs, right where it hurts, and his arms fall slack. She twists in his hold and yanks the waterproof cover of his pack up and over his head, snapping it onto his head.

‘Ow!’

‘Booyah! Take your manly stench and beat it, Jesse!’

‘My manly pride is wounded,’ he jokes, fumbling with the plastic to peel it off his head.

‘That’s not my problem.’

‘True.’ He gives a little ‘Ha!’ when he successfully pulls it off and he runs a self-conscious hand through his hair.

‘Don’t worry, you still look cool.’

‘Phewf, what a relief.’ He says it jokingly but Ellie picks up on a minor shift, an awkward step back.

‘Jesse, is there someone you’re trying to impress?’ she teases, and she straight up laughs when his cheeks burn darker.

‘No.’

‘Aw, come on, you can tell me.’

‘You’re the last person I would tell.’

‘What? How come?! Who would I tell? My enormous horde of friends?’ she jokes and Jesse grins.

Glancing over his shoulder and then back the way Ellie had come, Jesse makes a show of looking for eavesdroppers before he leans in. ‘I’m serious, you can’t tell anyone.’

‘Yeah, I promise,’ Ellie nods, stripping her voice of any humour. She might tease him about it later, likely relentlessly, but she wouldn’t tell anyone.

‘Alright. It’s…it’s Dina.’

‘Dina,’ Ellie repeats.

‘Yeah.’ He runs a hand through his hair again, his smile a little nervous, a little awkward. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think…that’s awesome. She’s, uh, awesome and you’re awesome so, yeah. that’s awesome.’

Luckily, he’s too absorbed in his own worrying to notice her excessive use of “Awesome”.

‘You think she’d like to hang out?’

‘Hang out? What are you, twelve?’

‘Shut up,’ Jesse laughs, knocks his shoulder gently into hers. ‘Hey, walk with me? I’m supposed to be at the gate, like, now.’

‘Sarah’ll tan you if you’re late.’

‘Cheers,’ he drawls, rolls his eyes. ‘Makes me way less nervous.’

Ellie pulls a face of mock sympathy, pats his shoulder. ‘Poor Jesse.’

‘So, walk?’

‘I, uh,’ Ellie gnaws on the inside of her cheek, points to Dina’s door. ‘I was gonna ask Dina if she wanted to hang, actually.’

‘Got some competition, do I?’

‘Ha,’ Ellie says, hardly a laugh at all. ‘No, I was gonna ask her if—you know what, don’t worry about it. Let’s go.’

Jesse shrugs. Hitches his pack up again. ‘Cool. She’s not in there anyway,’

‘Checked, did you?’

He rolls his eyes. ‘She got put on double shifts at the clinic after the food poisoning last week.’

‘Oh shit. Right.’

‘You should go talk to her though, I bet she’s itching for a break.’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Ellie scratches at the half finished tattoo on her arm, the healed bite mark. ‘Let’s get you to the gate, dude!’

‘Fuck, yeah, oh shit, Sarah’s gonna murder me!’

//

Ellie leaves Jesse to get his ear chewed off by Sarah, sending him a jovial little wave he can’t glare at her for without sending Sarah into a tailspin.

The heat has gotten to the trees, the wind. Leaves crinkle and crunch as Ellie strides away into the town and a faint breeze stirs up. It doesn’t do more than fiddle at the wisps that have escaped from her ponytail. It’s mocking her with what it could be—a real, refreshing gust of wind—and she swipes roughly at a streak of sweat that rolls down her forehead. Distracted, she doesn’t realise until she’s at the steps that her feet have brought her to the clinic.

Before her bravery—and her annoyance at the heat—can leave her, Ellie hurries up the steps and knocks politely.

‘Who is it!’

‘It’s Ellie, ma’am.’

‘Oh Ellie,’ Perry calls. ‘Wonderful. I need another pair of hands—get in here, would you?’

Ellie steps in and steels herself for whatever she’s about to see, and for a day of working in the clinic on her free hours, which she hadn’t anticipated. Leah—eight years old and the “exact size an’ shape an’ face of trouble” according to her mom—is grimacing down at her shin. Or rather, the great red gash there where typically there had been only clear brown skin.

‘Wash your hands, Ellie girl. The sanitizer is right here, that’s it.’ Ellie scrubs her hands briskly before squatting next to Perry, in front of Leah. ‘I need two hands to clean this out, I think there might be a bit of metal still in there. Mind helping me out?’

‘Not at all. Hi Leah.’

‘Hi Ellie,’ the girl returns, voice high and tight with pain.

Seeing Perry is about to touch the wound, Ellie shifts a little so she’s holding Leah’s leg securely and blocking most of the girls view with her body. ‘Have you ever heard of savage starlight? It’s this awesome comic set in the future with spaceships and aliens and robots and—‘ She keeps up a steady babble about the series as Perry cleans out the wound and stitches it up neat and quick.

‘Sounds boring,’ Leah tells Ellie when it’s all done and Ellie sits back and laughs, shaking her head.

‘Whatever, kid. Perry, do you need anything else?’ She does her best to not make it sound too much like she’s hoping Perry says no, but obviously doesn’t succeed because the woman snorts. Tosses her head toward the rear of the clinic, where the office is.

‘Dina’s in there. Told her to have a nap. That was five hours ago—haven’t heard a peep from her since I made her lay down.’

Ellie grins at the fond note in the doctors voice. ‘Sounds like Dina. You mind if I borrow her for the afternoon?’

‘Naw, that’s fine. She’s more than earned it.’

Ellie nods, pats little Leah on the shoulder and takes back the tape she’s squirrelled into her pocket, tosses it to Perry. For the second time today, she leaves before she can be dragged into someone else’s lecture.

Ellie heads for the office. Through the rippled glass window, she can see one end of the couch and resting, curled into the cushions, is Dina. The handle jiggles in her hand, one of the screws a little loose, but it turns and she opens the door with a squeal of rusted hinges. The sound makes her wince but Dina doesn’t seem to notice; she sleeps on, slow and even breathes making the hair over her face flutter.

Ellie steps in, makes a face—it’s even hotter in the office, which she hadn’t known was a possibility, and now she’s kind of relieved that she’s rescuing Dina. From a nap. She kneels next to her, hesitates. How to wake her up? Finally, she settles on calling her name and patting the knee closest to her.

‘Dina. Dina, wake up.’

She makes a brilliant sound, half snort, half snore, and jerks up on the couch to an uncomfortable looking slouch. ‘Huh what’s wrong?’ She slaps the tickling hair out of her face.

‘You missed the drool.’

Dina swipes at her mouth a little dazed, scowls when she feels her face is dry. ‘Oh ha ha, make fun of—‘ She cuts off in a big yawn, mumbles the rest, ‘—sleepy hard-working people.’

‘You’re right, it was cruel. I’ll wait ‘til you’re more awake,’ Ellie says sweetly and Dina snorts.

‘Thanks.’ She rubs at her eyes, yawns again. A big one, her jaw cracking. ‘Oh wow I needed that nap.’

‘You slept for five hours.’

‘What?’

‘Perry said you slept for five hours.’

Dina blinks, then shakes her head. ‘Shit. Guess the patients—oh shit the patients!’ She’s up on her feet and at the door before Ellie can tell her it’s fine, Perry took care of everyone and everything, and by the time she’s caught up, Dina is telling Perry off for letting her sleep so long and she’s here to help and Perry needs to rest too sometimes.

‘Ellie, be a dear and take this one away for me, would ya?’

‘I’d be delighted, ma’am,’ Ellie says too-formally, tipping an imaginary hat the way she’s seen Tommy do it. She scoops an arm around Dina’s waist, which is surprising enough that Dina actually stops talking mid-word and clutches onto Ellie’s arm as she’s towed backwards and out the door. ‘Mind your step,’ Ellie warns her when they get outside and Dina turns, allows Ellie—her hand now on the small of Dina’s back—to guide her away from the clinic.

‘Where to?’

‘Hm?’

‘You have a plan, right? Or did your grand rescue end here?’

Ellie rolls her eyes. Hurriedly takes her hand back and shoves it into her jean pockets. ‘Actually, I—‘ She stops, scuffs the heel of her boot against the path.

‘Yes?’ Dina prompts, tone wheedling like she’s seen a prize and wants it.

‘Iwashopingyouwouldteachmetoswim,’ Ellie says all in a rush. When Dina blinks at her, she forces herself to repeat it, slower. ‘I was hoping,’ she clears her throat. ‘That you would, ah, teach me to swim.’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s an important skill to know and I kinda almost drowned, like, twice before and I feel like it’s really something to know and—wait, yes?’

‘Yeah,’ Dina laughs. ‘Plus, it’s perfect. It’s so fucking hot.’

‘It’s so fucking hot,’ Ellie agrees whole-heartedly. ‘Great. Um. Now?’

‘Yeah, just let me get into something I can swim in. And unless you want to strip to your boxers, I suggest you find some shorts.’

Face in flames from the mere suggestion of stripping, Ellie just nods and walks quickly away.

‘Meet me at the north gate! Ten minutes!’

//

‘I thought you said you had something to swim in,’ Ellie chokes out some thirty minutes later. They had met at the gate and hiked a short while to the slow moving river at the top of their waterfalls, with plenty of shallow points for Ellie to dip her toes in. Which is what she had been doing when, on the shore, Dina strips fully out of her clothes until she’s standing in a bra and underwear.

‘Yeah, my best undies. Don’t worry, you can keep your modesty and your clothes, dear Ellie. I won't take them. Just your swimming virginity.’ Ellie laughs, surprised, and Dina’s eyes glint with wicked good humour. ‘Leave your boots, you don’t want them on in the water. Too heavy.’

‘Are—the rest of my clothes, they feel heavy too when they’re soaked.’

‘You wanna take those off too? Be my guest.’

‘No, I mean,’ Ellie shrugs out of her jacket, lays it on a rock a way from the water. ‘It felt heavy when I was trying to paddle in them.’ The memory—rushing water and the dark, rubble and scraping, cutting metal all around them and Joel, fucking Joel trapped in a fucking bus and she can’t— she sucks in a deep breath, staggers back out of the water that swirls so gently around her ankles. It feels nice in the summer heat; it feels terrible against her skin, a second from sucking her under, filling her lungs. ‘Maybe this was a bad idea.’

Dina steps out of the water to join her. She takes Ellie’s twisting hands and holds them tight. ‘If you wanna go back, we can do that. But if you want to learn to swim, I promise you, Ellie—I promise you—I won’t let you get hurt.’

Ellie holds her breath for a moment. Then, she throws her shoulders back and forces a grin. ‘That’s good to hear from a teacher.’

‘Pretty much the basic expectation, right?’

Ellie’s grin comes more easily then, relief flooding through her that Dina gets it, understands pretty much instinctively that to do this she needs to just… do it.

‘Step one?’

‘We’re gonna walk into the water together to our knees,’ Dina tells her.

Ellie nods. Ignores the way her hands tremble, still caught in Dina’s.

‘Well. All in, I guess,’ she says, and before she can think more about it she shucks her shirt and shorts until she’s in her boxers and singlet.

‘That’s my girl,’ Dina crows, and she walks with Ellie no further than their knees, as promised. ‘This is nice, right?’

Ellie feels a chill down her spine and her teeth are gritted tight, skin stretched white over her knuckles. ‘Yeah.’ Dina looks uncertain then, as though the flimsy plan she had to teach Ellie is being washed away. Ellie feels a lot of guilt open up in her stomach and she forces herself again to relax. ‘What’s next?’

Dina’s concern turns to an out and out frown and she turns Ellie around and marches her out of the water.

‘This isn’t some torture myself day,’ she scolds. ‘I’m not going to force you to do anything, Ellie, and I’m not gonna stand around as you make yourself do it either. Get me?’

‘…Yes.’

‘Good.’

Dina throws herself down onto the grass, lays back, breathe puffing out of her. Ellie wavers between joining her and—

‘Stop looming, Ellie. Lay down.’

‘’kay.’

‘We can try again later.’

‘…Okay.’

They lay there for some time, the sun crawling over the sky and the faintest of breezes curling up from the cold river. Drowsily, not making the effort to even open her eyes, Dina says, ‘This is nice. I really needed a second nap.’

‘I figured you would.’

‘You know me so well,’ she smiles and Ellie tilts her head toward Dina to catch one half of it. ‘Ellie?’

‘Mhm.’

‘You wanna try again?’

Ellie feels the heat—so disgusting earlier in the day, and dragging, and thick—fill her limbs with a honey slowness, and though she still feels the fear building at the thought of going into the river, it’s slower. Manageable.

‘Yeah,’ she says, a little surprised. ‘I do.’

They don’t have time to get too crazy; Dina walks her up to her knees again, and then her thighs, and then she has her do something Ellie is pretty sure is just to embarrass her but then Dina gets down next to her and they lay on their bellies and practise a front stroke until Ellie feels like she’s got it.

‘Next time,’ Dina tells her as they pull on their clothes, which instantly soak from their wet underwear, ‘we’ll practise floating and maybe treading water too.’

‘Sounds great,’ Ellie tells her, and she even mostly means it.

Dina grins over at her, reaches up to touch her cheek. ‘You got some red in your cheeks. Too much sun.’

‘s’fine,’ Ellie shrugs, and she expects the movement to have Dina letting her go but instead she puts her other water-chilled hand to Ellie’s other cheek. ‘Dina,’ she grumbles but Dina squeezes her cheeks together and her name comes out muffled and mangled through pursed lips. ‘Stop it.’

‘Stop it,’ Dina mimics, laughing. ‘You’re so cute.’

‘I’m not cute. I’m tough. I kicked Jesse’s ass today, y’know.’ It's a hard thing to sound tough when Dina is still squishing her cheeks. Ellie lifts her hands, curls her fingers gently around Dina’s wrists to lift them away. It’s…ridiculous, how the touch, the feel of Dina’s heartbeat thudding away beneath her fingertips, makes her feel so warm.

She lets her hands drop away, pats down her pockets to make sure everything is accounted for.

‘Oh really?’

‘Yeah!’

‘That’s cute.’

Ellie rolls her eyes and sets off down the cliffside back to Jackson. She slows down when Dina calls out to her, offers a hand when they come to a steep part. Dina accepts, pressing her still-cold hand into Ellie’s.

When they return to steady ground, Ellie imagines for a moment that Dina’s grip tightens before she pulls, slowly, away.

‘Hey Dina?’ Ellie watches the walls of the town rise up and she wants, maybe needs, to say this before they step back inside that world. ‘Thank you. You didn’t have to do—any of that.’

‘You mean teaching you, or being your friend?’

Butterflies sprout sudden wings and begin to slam into the walls of Ellie’s stomach. She shrugs. ‘Ah, both?’

‘You’re welcome,’ Dina tells her, very simply. And then, ‘Although I counted my thank you as getting to see you in a singlet.’ She fans her cheeks. ‘Wow. If I had known about those arms before,’

‘Oh god.’

‘You’ll have everyone beating down your door trying to teach you how to swim.’

‘Shouldn’t‘ve said a damn thing,’ Ellie grumbles, stomping toward the gate. Again, when Dina laughs, calls out to her to slow, Ellie does.

‘You’re welcome,’ Dina says again, more sincerely. ‘And, like. If you ever want to talk or something,’

‘Sleepover.’

‘Hmm?’

‘We, I mean. We could have a sleepover.’

‘Absolutely,’ Dina agrees quickly.

Ellie stops. Squints, suspicious, at Dina. ‘You want to see me in a singlet again.’

‘I’m only human!’

The summer heat and the seven hundred times Dina has touched her today and the crazy reckless burst in her chest she gets sometimes all combine and Ellie feels a grin spread over her face and she tamps it down, tries for sympathy, when she says, ‘Sorry to disappoint, but I sleep in the nude.’


	16. First Dance

prompt : in a previous town dance/party someone asks ellie to dance and dina tries to intervene?

* * *

‘May I have this dance?’

Ellie looks up from her partner, face bright red from dancing so much and with so much terrible enthusiasm, and her beaming smile widens when she sees Dina, pretty Dina with her bright eyes.

‘I don’t know,’ Ellie hedges. ‘You’ll have to ask my partner. What do you think, Meg?’

The little girl, dark hair puffing out in little buns on either side of her head, dressed in the cutest little blue dress Ellie has ever seen, puffs out her cheeks and clings mightily to Ellie’s hands. She scowls up at Dina.

‘No!’

‘Ooh, sorry Dina,’ Ellie shrugs, laughing, and she hoists Meg up into her arms again. ‘The lady has spoken.’

Dina narrows her eyes. ‘There’s juice at the bar. And your parents aren’t watching.’

‘Nice try,’ Meg scoffs at hearing the bribe. ‘They won’t give me more juice.’

‘They will if I say it’s okay.’

‘You just wanna dance with Ellie.’

‘Do you want the juice or not?’

Meg sighs, looking longingly over at the bar. She reaches up and pats Ellie’s cheek. ‘Down. Please,’ she adds after a half second. Ellie spins her around, lifting her up high to make her squeal before setting her carefully down on the ground. She hugs Ellie around the legs before running off toward the bar and before Ellie can make sure she made it there alright, Dina swoops in and takes her hand, pulls it up to her own shoulder, and whisks Ellie into a fast paced waltz on the dance floor.

‘I don’t think this is how we’re supposed to dance to this,’ Ellie laughs, tripping the tiniest bit over her feet, not so used to following. ‘Whoa, watch out for the old folks!’

‘Who you callin’ old?’ Tommy yells after them as they spin past. ‘Hooligans!’

They go three more circuits of the floor before Ellie begs out, legs burning from keeping from stepping on Dina’s feet, her stomach hurting from laughing at the comments Dina whispers to her as they spin and spin and her head feels hot and dizzy more from Dina’s closeness than the spinning. Dina comes with her even though Ellie can see she has more in her, foot tapping to the music and body turned toward the dance floor like a sunflower follows the sun.

‘Lemme get a drink,’ Ellie says to her, her last drink and her racing heart conspiring to make her lean closer than maybe she should, lips brushing against Dina’s cheek, against her ear. ‘Then I’ll go right back out with you.’

Dina smiles up at her. ‘Promise?’

‘Of course.’

‘Go on then.' She smacks Ellie on the butt, jerks her head to the bar. ‘Get me something too. And if that little sneak Meg tries to steal you away, tell her I’m watching.’


	17. Bitter Revelations

prompt! Dina noticing ellies growth spurt (either slowly or all of a sudden haha)

* * *

They started out about the same height. Dina remembers because when Ellie would make eye contact with her—rare, delightful—she would get to stare right into the sweetest green eyes she’s ever seen.

But now…

'I thought people were supposed to, like, stop growing at some point.'

Ellie throws her a confused look. 'Huh?'

'How tall are you now?'

'Um. I don’t know. Taller than you and Howie, shorter than Jesse.' Ellie plucks the can of coffee from the top shelf of the kitchen with ridiculous ease. Dina narrows her eyes. 'Are you okay?' Ellie laughs. Laughs!

'Did you put the coffee up there?'

Ellie freezes as she spoons a little into the pot. '…No.'

'You’re such a fucking liar,' Dina explodes, throwing herself back into her chair so hard the wood creaks. 'Also a bitch.'

'I said no!'

'Like a liar!'

Ellie has the audacity to laugh again. Pops another spoonful of coffee in the pot and taps the spoon against the glass edge four times—tap-ta tap tap—the same way she always does.

Dina frowns more deeply to stop herself from smiling.

'I don’t know what you mean,' Ellie says after a very long pause, terribly insincere, because both of them know that she’s lying. She pops the lid back onto the coffee and, standing on tiptoes, nudges the can onto the highest shelf. 'Coffee?'


	18. Bittersweet Revelations

maybe ellie getting a girlfriend and dina getting jealous and that's how she figures out she likes ellie? 

* * *

‘—need to take stock of our materials as well, you know how it gets in the wet season and I want to be sure that we’re prepared for anything. I’d also like to go over our emergency drills again, so if you could talk to Tommy while I corner Maria that’d be best, those Millers only listen to a handful of people and the ghosts know it ain’t me, the only _actual_ medical professional in miles around. _Who_ are you staring at?’ Perry demands finally, and she stomps over to join Dina at the window. ‘Oh for fucks—Rachael? Again?’

Dina lets the shutters _snip_ closed. ‘No.’

‘What’ve you got against the girl? She seems nice enough.’ Perry takes Dina’s place and without so much as a by-your-leave opens the shutters again. She’s silent for a moment and then, ‘Oho, I see.’

‘What?’ Dina rushes to peer through the gap, nearly knocking her teeth out on Perry’s shoulder when the woman shifts, seemingly without realising it, to block the way.

‘Oh my, _well_, they_ do_ look awfully friendly, don’t they?’

‘What are they doing?’ Dina demands, and she shifts to the next panel of shutters. There isn’t quite the same view from there and she has to push her head nearly fully up against the wall, cheek pressed to it, to be able see the group at all, to see what Perry sees. Her eyes dart across the group to see Rachael…still standing exactly where Dina had seen her last, a respectable two people apart from Ellie. Still with that stupid smile, but not doing anything at all. Heat burns across Dina’s cheeks and she steps back from the shutters and deeper into the medical bay to sit on the empty bed and sulk.

Perry says nothing. Just leans and crosses her arms and smirks.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You’re gonna have to,’ Perry tells her with very little sympathy in her tone, ‘because I need an assistant who actually focuses from time to time.’

‘I can focus!’

‘Not when your girl is out walking with someone else.’

‘She’s not _walking_ with her!’ Dina says, rolls her eyes at the antiquated phrasing. Then, when Perry’s grin grows, she adds hurriedly, ‘And she’s not my girl. I’m just—she’s my best friend and she deserves the best. And Rachael is…’

‘Perfectly nice?’

‘Maybe _too_ perfectly.’ Dina doesn’t look at Perry when she grumbles that. She’s _well aware_ that it isn’t a good argument, thank you very much, and she doesn’t need some old witch’s smug face to punctuate that. ‘She’s fine, if that’s what you’re into, I guess.’

‘Cute, kind, interested in you? Who’d be interested in that?’ Out of the corner of her eye, Dina can see Perry shake her head. The woman sighs. ‘Either talk to Ellie—‘

‘This isn’t about Ellie!’

‘—or don’t. But if you don’t,’ Perry warns, ‘you’re gonna have to be prepared for if this gets serious. You don’t say anything? You only have yourself to blame. Got that?’

‘This isn’t about Ellie,’ Dina says again, more quietly, and though she had been pretty sure that was true—because the words came to her instantly, powerfully—there’s a piece of her, one that has always been very clever and very ready to call herself on her own bullshit that wonders if perhaps the knee-jerk words are, maybe, possibly, potentially her lying to herself just a little bit.

She wonders if it is strange to think that her brain is trying to gently ease her into the thought, like showing her the closed door and telling her what might be behind it so she doesn’t—what? Get a fright? Panic?

‘Oh no.’

Dina looks with wide and wild eyes over at her mentor, who grimaces.

‘Now look, I don’t have time or the mental capacity to coach you through a crisis.’

‘Bullshit! We haven’t got a single patient!’

‘Alright, I plain don’t want to.’ Perry looks stoic enough but Dina knows that if she widens her eyes a fraction more and makes her bottom lip tremble then—Perry shifts uncomfortably, sighs. ‘Fine. What do you want to hear? I don’t have any books on, y’know, _so you discovered you’ve got the hots for your best friend because someone else has moved on them_. They went out of print years and years ago. I meant what I said—you’ve gotta talk to her.’

‘But—it’s _Ellie_.’

‘Yeah,’ Perry agrees. ‘Isn’t that the entire point?’

‘I can’t like Ellie, I—‘ Dina considers, mind racing. Considers late night conversations and sneaking across the compound to her room, swimming lessons and serenading, stolen drinks and stolen looks across the hall during a particularly dull briefing, riding out with her best friend and protecting her and fighting with her and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s safe with Ellie, that Ellie has got to stay in her life exactly as she is now and more, never less. ‘Ah.’


	19. Ellie's Lullaby

prompt: rainy days, dina and ellie, warm drinks, ellie drawing or singing. not yet girlfriends, but will be soon >:) this is all over the place but something cute and cozy but also meaningful would be amazing

* * *

Dina’s hair curls out of the bun she’s got it tied up in. The rain had plastered it to her skin, dark and stringy, but now that she’s been sitting by the fire for the past hour it’s sprung back and curls in little wisps at her hairline and in front of her ears. 

_It’s cute. She’s cute,_ Ellie thinks, and, I _want to touch_. She’s thankful for the heat of the fire too when her cheeks and the tips of her ears burn hot. 

The sleeping bags are all bundled against the walls of the mess hall, blankets and pillows dropped anywhere their owners pleased. Joel had said it looks exactly like a school camp he’d been to once - shut up real quick after that with a distant look to his eyes that tells Ellie he’s remembering his girl, his Sarah. 

Ellie just wishes it were a camp, or voluntary at all, instead of what it is. The rain had come down thick and fast and washed right through a good portion of the southern blocks, filling them knee-high with water. Tommy’s solution is to bring everyone out and put them in the mess hall for the night, maybe longer, until more accommodation can be opened up. Ellie knows that everyone in the north block, high on the hill, is emptying out whatever spare space they have and the sick beds are being prepared in case someone comes down with a case of pneumonia no one can afford to get. She also knows that somehow - through good luck, good faith, good friends, who really knows why - this isn’t the disaster it could have been. Instead, everyone had filed happily enough into the hall and changed into dry clothes and the fires had begun to roar and crackle brightly from opposite ends in the fireplaces and in a few bins in the centre of the room and everyone gathered about them to warm their hands and roast the rare sugary treats they’d found and boil some drinks, and what could have been a truly miserable evening is nowhere near as bad as it could have been. 

‘So,’ Dina asks, cheerful and bright and beautiful and carrying two steaming mugs of what Ellie hopes is coffee, ‘are you going to play that thing or are you just going to hold it?’

‘Hold it,’ Ellie tells Dina instantly, smiling with deep insincerity up at her. Her fingers brush over the strings of her guitar and she feels the vibration, not loud enough to make a sound but enough to tickle. ‘Is one of those for me?’

‘Nope, both for me,’ Dina says, equally insincere. Her eyes gleam as she drinks first from one and then, teasingly, slowly, and with great relish, drinks from the other as well. 

Ellie wants to say something devastatingly funny to make Dina laugh, but all her words stick in her throat and it’s all she can do to keep her smile from turning so incredibly creepy as everything warm and shy and fond inside of her threatens to do exactly that. Her cheeks burn hotter and her gaze falls; Ellie shakes her head, says - thankfully not too shakily, ‘Wow. Okay, rude,’ and it feels like a victory and the nicest surprise when Dina laughs. A success. 

Dina sits next to her. Presses right up to Ellie’s side and somehow manages to make what should be a simple hand-off into something complex and dangerous to Ellie’s heart; she presses the coffee into Ellie’s hand and then strokes her free hand over Ellie’s forearm, curls her arm around Ellie’s, leans in so her cheek is squashed against Ellie’s shoulder. There's no space between them but Ellie still has to breathe and it sends something warm and nervous through her when she can feel all of Dina next to her, pushing into her space, sharing the space with her, when she inevitably needs to breathe and her shoulders shift and brush against her.

Her voice rumbles through Ellie’s shoulder, through her body. The situation isn’t helped at all by Dina’s teasing words. ‘You’re so tense.’

‘I’m trying not to spill my drink. Want to free me up, limpet?’ Ellie teases. 

Her eyes are fixed on some distant point across the room as she tries not to move and accidentally shove Dina off her - it's driving her crazy, yeah, but in the good way. Not moving makes her breathing is shallow, and either it already was or its contributing to the fact that Ellie is _well_ into panicking. Dina smells like smoke and coffee and her shampoo and she’s _so_ warm pressed right up against her.

‘No.’

‘Fine. But if I spill, it’s your fault.’

‘That’s fine.’

//

They drink in silence. When Dina is done, she turns her face into Ellie’s shoulder. Ellie’s mind blanks at the sensation of lips on her, even through the cloth of her shirt. Then,

‘Are you wiping your mouth on me?’ 

She can feel Dina smile. ‘Yeah.’

‘Gross.’

‘You love it.’

‘I - I don’t.’

Dina’s smile widens and her laugh is almost too low for Ellie to hear, but she _feels_ it and shivers. ‘Your voice cracked,’ she teases. 

‘Shut up.’

//

Ellie drags her fingers over the guitar strings again. Dina has been dozing on and off for a little while but Ellie can’t sleep. The combination of Dina’s warmth at her side, the still-burning fires, the drink in her system, combines to put Ellie in a weird state. She’s not on edge, not as uncomfortable as she normally is sleeping in an unfamiliar place, but neither is she ready to sleep. 

All around her, people are starting to find their sleeping bags and beds and fall into piles of their friends and sleep in warm bundles of bodies and quiet laughter. The noise - indistinct, like the chatter of autumn leaves, all reds and oranges, all warm - sweeps through the room and Ellie feels it wash over her. The strings shiver under her touch again and quietly, gently, she plays. There’s no song that comes to mind; she’s too close to tired for that, her mind hovering just out of reach of the music. But her body doesn’t need lyrics and her fingers pick over the strings until something that sounds like and unlike the chatter, like and unlike the rains and the crackling of fall leaves pours through her and through the guitar. She plays, enjoying mimicking the burble of conversation that rises and falls like friendly voices, and the occasional low strum of something that makes the cold that lingers in her chest shiver but she turns away from that quickly, not needing the reminder of everything dangerous that remains outside tonight. She plays, eyes closed, and thinks about Dina and about her friends and the music isn’t close to brilliant or perfect - she’s still learning and her fingers fumble now and again over unfamiliar chords - but her lips curl up as the hall slows and stills and breathes with the music almost like a lullaby. A new world lullaby, one with teeth and cold winds and fear, and something small and hopeful stirring in the centre of it. She plays until her hands ache, unused to playing for so long, and then she stops, lets her wrist hang over the belly of the guitar, and lets out a long breath. 

‘That was beautiful,’ Dina whispers, her head down by Ellie’s hip as she lays curled under the blanket Ellie had draped over her. 

Ellie clears her throat very quietly. Swallows. Sets the guitar back in its case. She opens and closes her hands a few times to work the faint ache out of them. 

‘Go to sleep.’

‘You too?’ Dina asks, yawns, and Ellie lays down next to her; with a shy smile, she accepts the half of the blanket Dina offers. It’ll be taken away again as soon as Dina falls properly asleep - blanket hog as she is - but until then, the air is borderline burning hot between them, under the blanket, and Ellie still shivers when Dina drags a hand over her arm. ‘You gonna sleep?’

‘Yeah,’ Ellie breathes. 

‘Sweet,’ Dina yawns, bleary eyes squeezing shut, ‘dreams.’

‘You too.’

In the dark, the shadows of the blanket dragged up to their shoulders, Dina’s eyes are little more than two pinpricks of firelight in the dark. Ellie makes out the faintest curve of a smile and then Dina is shuffling closer. She curls an arm around Ellie’s waist, wriggles and shuffles and moves Ellie’s hands until Ellie is hugging her too and then, lips moving against Ellie’s clavicle - because apparently she _wants_ to give Ellie a heart attack - she says, ‘You’re somethin’ else, Ellie.’

//

Ellie is pretty sure she dreamed it. Most of it. But she doesn’t think very highly of her brain, certainly not to the point where she could dream up something as perfect as Dina kissing her. The corner of her mouth - mostly lip, actually - burns when she thinks about Dina. Her best friend, leaning up under the cover of dark and the amber light of warm, burning flames, to press a kiss to her cheek. 


	20. The Gang Found DnD

Ellie and Dina (and friends) playing dnd (with the most likely very limited recourses that they have found) 

* * *

There’s an empty lot out beyond the stables that in the warmer months is a rather lovely grassed lawn where the older settlers relive what they call “glory days” and argue about the rules of rugby and soccer and the younger settlers straight up brawl and sometimes pass the ball as well. The game the kids created is called ruckus and it has been unofficially banned by Perry, the settlements premier doctor.

It’s winter now, which means that a hastily constructed barrier of old wood has been raised approximately halfway into the field and a handful of kids—hardly any of them actually kids, nearer to twenty honestly, but that’s what they’ve always been called so the designation has stuck—are hunkered down behind it. Dark string has been strung out across the field to form large five by five foot squares and on the far side of the field there is what looks like the remains of several sheds and maybe a car that has been made into one odd building. The game they’re playing now has not been banned, though if it continues developing at the pace it has been, Ellie suspects it might be soon.

‘The space station is just ahead,’ Howie tells them in a low voice. Howie is the only one of them dressed all in black and they stand out harsh against the greys and whites of the snowfall. They’re not holding any weapons; instead, Howie clutches a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. They’re crouched down in the centre of the cluster of friends, showing the rough map drawn into the notebook. ‘As we all know, the Corsairs have taken the flight key and if we want to get off this planet, we have to get it back.’

‘I'm sorry, hold on, I missed last weeks game.’ That voice - quiet, cracking in the vulnerable midst of puberty - belongs to Darren. Clad in furs, face painted with a grey handprint, he would at first glance make a rather frightening figure. Until one sees the big smile behind the paint and the gangling limbs hidden by bulky furs. ‘Can I just get a quick refresh?’

Howie sighs. ‘Yes, fine, okay. We,’ Howie gestures to the group, ‘are the heroes of destiny, a group named -‘ Here Howie grimaces and their friends grin, leaning in to hear them say it. ‘A group named The Tits.’ There's a slight cheer and scattered laughter before, making eye contact with each of them, Howie flips to a Forbidden Page in their notebook and scrawls something down. The others fall instantly silent. Howie continues. ‘The Tits were on a sacred mission from the Queen to recover the lost relics of the First Age when they came across a band of pirates who were intent on finding these same relics and using their powers for their own nefarious means. The group is called the Corsairs and they are your mortal enemies. Even more so now,’ Howie says, and they watch as several of the group begin to frown and grumble and glare daggers into the distance, where the Corsairs are said to be hidden out. ‘After they grievously wounded your leader, the holy messenger of the god of light, Barley.’

Seemingly without anyone really noticing what they’re doing, everyone checks subtly on Ellie. Dina leans a little more heavily on her. Jesse looks her over as though checking for injury. Georgie grips tight to the handle of her blade. Darren, who hadn’t known that, whips entirely around to face Ellie.

‘What?!’

‘I’m fine now. Parker saved me.’ She nods to Jesse, who nods back.

‘Correct. Parker, our ranger, dove into the fray to save their friend, valiantly taking the blow intended for Barley and almost dying as well before bringing Barley back up to—‘

‘Six hit points.’

‘—letting Barley use their turn to smite the horde with an incredible use of turn undead, actually destroying almost everyone within thirty feet because they were only level two skeletons.’

‘Wow,’ Darren breathes.

‘Now, you’ve all had a rest to recover after the fight—Lothera, you were uninjured during the fight, you kept watch,’ Howie says. Dina nods. Her face has been painted almost entirely white, in the shape of a skull. ‘And Tee, our barbarian, set up traps to make sure you’d wake up if there was an incursion into the camp but when you woke up everything seemed to be just fine.’

‘Seemed to be,’ Ellie mutters, and fixes Howie with a distrustful look.

‘Right, right,’ Darren nods, and he scribbles quickly in his book. ‘Barley, paladin. Lothera, warlock. Tee, barbarian. Parker, ranger. and I’m a wizard.’

‘Correct. Ready?’

Darren tucks his book into his pocket and grabs onto his wand, a rather prettily carved stick he had been gifted. ‘Ready!’

‘_As_ I was saying, the corsairs have taken the flight key, which we need to get back. You have tracked them here.’ Howie jabs their finger down at the notebook, taps it on the x-marked house.

Cautiously, Ellie—that is, Barley, Chosen of the god of light—peers over the barrier between their party and the open field.

‘Can we see what kind of defences there are between us and them?’

‘That would be a job for your ranger.’

Ellie grunts. ‘Parker?’

‘Yeah, I'll check it out. _Chosen one_,’ he adds with a snide little aside and Ellie has to turn away to hide a grin. They’ll duke it out at some point—Ellie has plans to take him aside into the court of the sunlit gods when they make it back to Vangardia, and maybe fight him if he keeps being a pig-headed idiot—but that can wait.

‘Time to put that behind you,’ Dina—Lothera, warlock of the undying mistress—says. ‘Focus on the task at hand.’

‘Maybe I'd feel better about the _task at hand_ if I knew Barley wasn’t about to go killing herself,’ Jesse hisses. ‘You’re being reckless, and you’re not just putting yourself in danger.’ He locks eyes with Ellie for a moment and, when he gets a nod from her, relents somewhat. ‘I will search ahead.’ He nods to Howie and the two of them creep off.

Without some of the tools the guide books talk about, they’ve had to become a little creative with how they play the game. The hall is always in use for something or other and their games, which more often than not involve discussions turning into arm wrestling or shouting matches, had gotten them kicked out one too many times. So Howie had made up new rules to go with their somewhat expanded set up. It was hard to roll for things when the board game was this big, and especially when not everyone had good dice. So Howie kept the dice, and the story, and everything they needed on their person and all the players had to remember was a single set of numbers.

Ellie, Barley Lightborn, was a paladin healer. She has a sword made of light and a shield, which she hefts into a more comfortable position on her left arm. It’s a small thing made of lightweight metal and strapped over with excess leather but it makes her feel like a real knight when she’s wearing it, as absolutely goofy as that sounds. She also has her stat block tucked into a pocket on the shield so she can get at it quickly—body 5, brain 2, spirit 6. What Howie does with the numbers is apparently complex and fascinating but Ellie is content to just let them tell her what happens.

‘What do you think is out there?’ Dina—Lothera—whispers in Ellie’s ear. It tickles and Ellie ignores it in favour of peeking up over the barrier with her. Together, they watch as Howie gestures to a corner of the field. Jesse writes in his notebook, nodding with a frown.

‘I don’t know. What’s Parker’s brain score?’

‘Five. Pretty clever, I think the smartest next to Foley, but more experienced with traps and stuff like that. But Howie might lie to him. They do that sometimes,’ Dina grouses. She’s still bitter about the fact that her supposed best friend and fellow warlock, Margareth, had been turning their patron against her and framed her for the destruction of their temple.

‘Very true.’ Ellie pats her shoulder sympathetically. Her hand goes to the walkie on her hip when it crackles.

‘_Hunker down or I’m giving your enemies advantage on perception. Over_,’ Howie tells them sternly. Ellie glances to where they are with Jesse and finds them both staring right at her.

Ellie drops down into the snow, pulling Dina with her. ‘Roger that,' she says, ignoring Dina's giggles. 'Over.’

‘_We’ll be back soon. If you have any preparations you want to make, do it now. over and out._’


	21. Two Winners In This Game

Ellie and Dina and climbing trees contests would be FUCKIN CUTE 

* * *

‘I spy,’ Andrew says, and Ellie feels the buzz on her thigh as Dina full-body groans. ‘Shut up. I spy with my single eye something beginning with…E.’

‘Ellie.’

‘Focus, Dina.’

‘Ent.’

‘For fucks sake, I haven’t read those books-‘

‘How do you know what it is if you haven’t read the books?’

‘Because you talk about them all the time!’

‘He’s got you there, Howie,’ Georgie says in her peculiar rasping voice, the short laugh chipping out rough and brittle but no less sincere for that. It has something to do with the scar across her throat and they’re all long since used to it.

‘Alright if you’re so smart what did his eye spy then?’

‘You’re sounding very irate for a child’s game,’ Georgie tells them. She glances over to Andrew. Squints at him. ‘Eagle.’

‘Eagle is correct.’

Howie throws their hands up in the air, jabs an accusing finger at Andrew, which wavers over to Georgie. ‘Fuck. You. Both. Seven games in a row! You’re cheating!’

‘We pay attention.’

Dina freezes tense for a second. She tilts her head toward Ellie, who cracks an eyelid to look at her; when Dina just lifts her brows, Ellie shakes her head, confused.

‘What?’ she mouths.

Dina’s smile presses into her cheeks, amused, mischievous. She lifts her hand. _Later_, the gesture seems to say. _I’ll tell you later._

‘And I don’t?’ Howie demands.

‘No.’

‘Never.’

‘Not once in your life.’

Howie’s jaw drops. They look mortally offended and they look to Ellie for backup, who shrugs and yawns.

She’s not much interested in games. She’s very interested in napping here with Dina. Or, the closest she gets to a nap. Her body isn’t quite willing to relax that much outside of the settlement but there’s been no incidents for months, she’s laying on her back in the rustling brush grass with her friends, the sun is hot overhead, and Dina is using her leg as a pillow. Georgie has a lazy hand on her gun and even as she’s teasing Howie she keeps a careful eye on the tree line that reassures Ellie, puts her at ease.

Ellie pulls her fingers gently through Dina’s hair, stroking. Whenever she stops, Dina makes a noise of complaint that makes Ellie’s heart lurch out of place, so she continues.

‘If Howie keeps losing they’ll cry,’ Ellie says finally. ‘Pick another game.’

‘Tag.’

‘You play a violent version of that,’ Howie accuses. ‘What about cards?’

‘Dropped half of my deck,’ Georgie tells them. ‘Michaels is going to get me some next time she gets to town but who knows when that’ll be? Darts.’

‘Do you have any darts?’ Howie asks, curious. They watch in fascination as Georgie digs several out of a pocket in her jacket, and then flips open a compartment of her bag to show yet more. ‘Damn, okay. How about we do nothing that involves tackling or weaponry.’

Dina props herself up on her shoulders, looks thoughtfully around the clearing. ‘Race to the top of the hoop pine?’

//

The sap sticks to her, hot and sticky. The bark is tough and rough and scrapes at Ellie’s palms, bristles against her flannel and tiny shreds crackle off onto the cloth and into her hair as she grazes against it, hauling herself up one step at a time. The branches are firm underfoot and wrap at almost even intervals around the trunk, making it relatively easy to climb here near to the base. Everything smells strongly of pine and Dina sneezes at Ellie’s side so hard her head knocks into her hip.

‘Easy there, slowpoke.’

Dina pokes her in the back of the knee, making her leg buckle, and takes off up into the branch above.

‘There should be a prize!’ Georgie calls from close to the base, not taking part in the game. ‘Make It interesting!’

‘Booze!’

‘No washing up for a week!’

‘I get to choose the next movie night !’

‘Shrek?’ four voices joking ask. Howie grumbles but doesn’t disagree.

Andrew barks a laugh. ‘You’re losing, Howie, that’s never gonna happen! If I win, I get to burn that fucking copy of Shrek.’

Ellie “accidentally” lets a twig drop into Drew’s head.

‘Hey!’

‘Not cool, Drew. Not cool.’

‘Winner gets a kiss,’ Dina suggests laughingly, to break the tension or to inject more, Ellie isn’t sure. Either way, all hands seem to pause where they’re clutching at the tree and then, in a flurry of noise and movement, everyone is hurtling themselves up to the top of the tree.

The wind is stronger nearer to the top and soon Howie bows out gracefully, clinging to their perch and refusing to move further. Ellie uses their shoulder to push up higher, and they moan about heights and Ellie being their least favourite friend. Ellie laughs, the sound snatched away by the wind, and she grins down at them—to see Andrew coming toward her at a considerable clip.

‘Got someone in mind?’ she teases, and brings her boot down hard on the branch she’s standing on, letting it break under her as she pulls up to the next one. Andrew swears and stops, flings an arm over his eyes to cover them.

‘You’re such a bitch!’

‘I get shit done!’

‘Bitchily!’

‘I can only hear one person bitching,’ Dina teases.

Ellie jerks, glancing down, eyes wide. Dina has caught up to her somehow and soon they’re neck and neck, Dina smiling at her from her place around the trunk. They’re almost to the point where someone will have to slow and let the other pass, the branches smaller and slimmer and the trunk shifting with the wind, and Ellie is determined not to let that be her.

‘Let the best woman win,’ she says, and Dina’s eyes flash.

‘Thank you, I will.’

Andrew gracelessly bows out, puking off to the side.

With just Dina and Ellie left, Ellie tunes out the running commentary their friends keep up. She pulls herself hand over hand, feels the burn and stretch in her limbs as she pulls up through the foliage. Dina is keeping pace, brow furrowed as she squints up to where she wants to be, lips pursed in a determined moue.

Ellie falters reaching for the next branch.

What if-

Well.

She knows who she would kiss if she had the choice but the idea of asking - and in front of their friends - petrifies her.

And then she thinks about Dina winning, and the quiet moments they’ve shared since the dance, and the way her heart slams in her chest and the points of her pulse in her wrists, that spot Dina trails over with her fingers and leaves unforgettable sign of her passage in lines that almost burn against Ellie’s skin, and her neck, the collar that feels all too tight when Dina eyes her like she wants to -

Suddenly, the idea of Dina wanting to kiss her is all Ellie can think about and it’s - overwhelming and intoxicating and she _laughs_.

Adrenaline surges through her and Ellie climbs faster, ignoring the twigs that tug and tangle in her hair, the fresh scent that bursts around them with the crack of branch and crushed needles. With renewed speed, she swings up the branches and Dina’s eyes widen as she storms up toward her, nearly to the point of victory.

‘Hey, Dina!’

‘Don’t distract me!’ Dina shouts back. She sounds distracted

Ellie laughs again. ‘Dina,’ she calls, cajoling. ‘Who are you gonna kiss?’

Dina’s foot slips on its perch. Even with the wind whipping around them, Ellie reckons she can hear Dina gasp, and she’s not surprised because what they’re doing—what they are—isn’t something they’ve really talked about. Certainly not during in broad daylight with their friends all around, even if they aren’t quite close enough to hear. But want feels an awful lot like bravery right now, and Ellie meets Dina’s eyes with her own and grins wide and lazy.

‘I know who I’d kiss.’

A pink tongue darts over Dina’s lips. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Who’s that?’

Ellie pulls up so they’re neck and neck. The tree lurches with the weight of both of them; Ellie palms Dina’s shoulder, pulls her in to the trunk. Dina’s grip is tight but Ellie still worries.

‘I’m not letting you win, Williams.’

‘Pretty sure I win either way.’

‘You sound awfully sure about that.’

‘Do I have a reason not to be?’

Dina scoots closer. Her eyes dip to Ellie’s lips. ‘You know I like to win, Ellie.’

‘I do know that.’

It’s not her imagination that Dina’s eyes darken when she talks, at her cock sure drawl. It’s not her imagination that Dina wants her; it _isn’t_. Ellie sees it in gold brown eyes caught in the bright sunlight, in Dina’s hitched breath, in the hundred small ways Dina has touched her and kissed her and stayed by her side in the last few weeks. Ellie hoots, flings her head back and hollers into the sky.

Two trees over, a flock of ravens take off, cawing their displeasure.

‘Go on,’ she nods to Dina, cheeks warm and aching from a smile she can’t seem to drop. ‘You win.’

‘We both win,’ Dina confirms , but Ellie notes with delight that Dina definitely doesn’t wait a second, doesn’t give Ellie the opportunity to rethink herself before climbing the last few branches to the top. She lets out a yell of her own and after a moment, a cacophony of yells lift up from below. Hoots and hollers and loud calls that echo over the tree tops.

‘Well done. Last one to the bottom is a rotten egg,’ Ellie calls up to Dina when she feels her fingers start to truly cramp.

‘Oh you mother _fuc_-‘

//

‘All hail Dina!’ Ellie proclaims, hands scraping on the branch as she swings down to land lightly on the forest floor. There’s a lazy chorus and Ellie glares at their friends. ‘I said all hail and if I gotta wrestle those hails outta you, so help me I will.’

That makes them laugh, not a one of them taking her seriously.

Dina swings into Ellie’s back, sending her staggering forward. She wraps sweaty, sap-speckled arms around her neck, smooshing their cheeks together.

‘That was fun. Whose idea was that? _It was Dina’s fantastic idea. Isn’t she the best?’ _she says in terrible ventriloquism, reaching around to move Ellie’s jaw up and down. ‘Aw, thank you Ellie, I don’t know that I would say _fantasic_,’

‘Neither would I,’ Ellie assures her.

‘But I’ll take it!’

Georgie rolls her eyes. Salutes. ‘All hail,’ she says in that flat monotone.

‘Aw, thank -‘

‘Ellie said we had to.’

‘Fuck you, Howie,’ Dina says cheerfully.

‘Oh no thank you,’ they demur. ‘I’m alright.’ Ellie laughs. She shifts, moves her hands under Dina’s thighs to hitch her higher on her back, a proper piggy back now. Howie eyes them, a smile hiding in one dimple and struggling to get out. ‘So, who gets the prize?’ they pry. ‘Who gets the kiss?’

‘I’ll have to think about it,’ Dina deflects airily, and squeezes her thighs against Ellie’s sides.


	22. Skinnydipping

hear me out: joel catching ellie & dina skinnydipping

* * *

‘I’m not taking off my clothes and getting in there,’ Ellie tells her, arms folded.

‘Why not? You scared?’

Ellie rolls her eyes. ‘Yes. Of bacteria. Hunters coming up on us naked and unarmed. Sharks.’

‘It’s a lake.’

‘Big fish, then.’

‘Wow,’ Dina sighs, and she pops the button of her jeans with all the fanfare of a blink. ‘I never knew you were such a baby.’

‘What are you—oh my god, Dina!’ Ellie hisses, spinning around to face the tree line. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking my clothes off. What are you doing?’

‘I’m—standing guard.’

‘Boo, boring,’ she hears Dina say, and then gulps when a pair of jeans are thrown against her legs, swiftly followed by a jacket and Dina’s red shirt. From far behind her she hears Dina gasp and then the sound of something sinking under the water.

‘Dina?’ Ellie spins around—the dusk sky is heavily clouded and the faint moonlight doesn’t give her the best vision of the lake. She stumbles closer, scooping up Dina’s clothes in her arms. ‘Dina,’ she calls quietly.

The surface of the lake is smooth like glass, the only ripples washing out from the lap of water on the stone shore.

‘Goddammit Dina, where are you?’

A hand bursts out of the water, wraps around her ankle, and Ellie swears, stumbling backwards.

‘You’re lucky I didn’t kick you in the fucking head,’ she tells Dina, heart slamming against her ribcage, when the girl—moonlight girl, freckled shoulders girl—laughs at her. ‘Oh god.’ Ellie lays back on the wet earth, breathes a few more curses up to the clouds. ‘You’re gonna get me killed.’

‘That’s a yes?’

‘That’s a you’re gonna get me killed,’ Ellie corrects her, but she sits upright and shucks her jacket. Dina helps with her boots, chucks them over toward her own. ‘Don’t tickle me—I mean it.’

‘I won’t tickle you, I promise. Get in, hurry up.’

‘…Turn away.’

Dina smiles up at her before turning away and she talks about what she sees as proof that she’s not watching.

‘I see trees. More trees. Oh shit—a fucking shark! Kidding,’ she laughs at her own joke. ‘I’m kidding, Ellie, now hurry up and strip.’

Ellie flushes hot but she strips her pants off and her shirt, leaving her in just her underwear, and as Dina talks with a simple joy about how nice the water is, and about the bat she saw overhead, Ellie slips quietly into the water and underneath.

It’s crystal clear but the moonlight, already dim, barely registers. The cold bites at Ellie’s nose and ears and lips but she holds off breaking up through the water for a moment, pushing toward Dina. She sees, faintly, that her friend has turned around and when Ellie wraps her arms around her underwater she hears her shriek, feels her flail. Her stomach lurches in a weird way at feeling her pressed so close, slick and cold, and Ellie releases her.

She bursts up, water washing down her cheeks, slicking her hair down, and Dina slaps at her, sends a wave of freezing water right into Ellie’s face and has the audacity to laugh when it makes her choke and snort, half-snot, half-lake water streaming down her face.

‘Oh gross Ellie.’

‘You don’t think that’s sexy?’ Ellie drawls, coughing up a good mouthful.

‘No. No I do not.’

‘Didn’t think so.’ Ellie grins over at her, then flails a little when the bed of the lake falls away under her feet. ‘Oh this is-‘ She splutters, water hitting her chin and mouth. ‘This is deeper than I thought.’

Dina swims over with confident strokes, offers her back and Ellie clings to her like a limpet as she carries her back to the shore.

‘Better?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. You’re getting much better at it.’

‘Thanks,’ Ellie mutters, transfers her grip to the sharp rock edge. ‘I think I’m built to keep my feet on the ground, though.’

‘Nah. You just need someone to keep you afloat.’

‘You offering to be my life jacket?’

‘Always. I’d be offended if you let someone else do it.’ Dina grins, slicks a wet slap of hair back from her face. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’

Ellie, now safe once more, turns. It is really beautiful, and the cold water is nice on her scrapes and bruises. She’s pretty sure it’s numbing her and they shouldn’t stay in here for much longer but for now, yeah. It’s really nice.

‘Yeah.’

‘Now say, Dina you have the best ideas.’

Ellie grimaces. ‘I don’t know…’

‘Dina, you have the best ideas,’ Dina says again, prompting her, ‘or I’ll drown you.’

‘I’d like to see you try,’ Ellie scoffs, forgetting that the challenge would entail both having to swim by herself and also Dina’s hands on her body. ‘Wait wait wait,’ she says the second Dina touches her, a hand cold on her waist and the other on her shoulder, which flares with heat when Ellie flushes. ‘Dina you have the best ideas,’ she hurries to say, and she successfully exchanges one potentially stupid moment for another when Dina swims close and smiles up at her, laughing eyes managing to catch what seems like every last sliver of moonlight until they’re glittering, beautiful.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Dina says, all smug, and she looks like she’s about to say something else when torchlight cuts through the trees. ‘Oh shit. Do you have a gun?’

‘In the water? In my pants?’

‘Right.’ Dina sinks lower in the water. ‘Shit.’

Ellie calculates the distance to their clothes, their packs. ‘I can make it.’

‘Ellie, no,’

‘Ellie?’

The girls relax at the familiar voice. Then stiffen again because, yeah, they’re mostly naked in the lake.

Joel’s torch beams over the area, returns to the pile of clothes. They can hear his sigh from the tree line.

‘Please tell me y’all ain’t naked in there.’

‘Not quite,’ Ellie tells him, pressing her hot forehead to the wet stone. Next to her, Dina giggles, and she turns her face into Ellie’s shoulder, making her shiver. Dina rubs a hand up and down her back, apparently taking the shiver as a sign of cold.

It does not help.

‘Get outta there,’ he tells them. ‘I found a place we can camp.’

‘Okay.’

‘Never takin’ y’all hunting again,’ they hear him mutter, and the sound of snapping twigs as he makes his way back.


	23. The Very Real Dangers of Pillow Fights

Dina tickling Ellie/epic pillow fight

* * *

'Explain to me again how this happened,’ Joel asks, dragging a hand down his face rather than look at the mess of Ellie’s room.

‘Is really bery simble,’ Ellie says as clearly as she can through her bloodied nose.

‘No—Dina. I trust you, you tell me.’

‘It’s really very simple,’

‘No, never mind,’ Joel point to Jesse. ‘You. You’re scared of me. What happened?’

‘Best as I can tell, sir, there was, um,’ Jesse’s fearfully quick words stutter as two pairs of stern eyes turn on him. ‘Um. Ellie slammed Dina with a pillow and Dina tackled her and was tickling her and Ellie must be way ticklish because she headbutted Dina and broke her own nose on Dina’s shoulder.’

‘This is why I broke up with you,’ Dina hisses. ‘You’re such a suck-up.’

Jesse spreads his hands helplessly. ‘Dude has a gun, Dina.’


	24. Bad Times Bonding Session

I know that this is really unlikely to happen in game but can you imagine Dina and Joel bonding over how much they love Ellie 

* * *

‘She’s like, _cool_, y’know?’

‘Who—Ellie?’ Joel looks surprised, but he tilts his head consideringly. ‘Yeah, I guess she is.’

‘You _guess_?’ Dina half-yells in indignation. Joel has to throw out a hand to keep her from stumbling over a raised brick when she turns to stare at him. ‘No, she definitely is. She’s like, tough and cool and she really cares, y'know?’

Her words are slurring now and Joel makes her stop, worried that the blood loss is getting to her. Kneeling down in front of her, even in the dim light of the half-buried complex they've found themselves in, he can see that her skin looks waxen, clammy with cold sweat that beads at her temples.

‘I'm gonna pick you up, okay?’

‘Is it bad, Joel?’

He looks up at his daughter’s best friend – girlfriend? – and sees her brown eyes huge with all the panic she’s been keeping at bay.

‘No, kiddo, you’re gonna be just fine. And Ellie is going to find us,’

‘You mean me.’

He rolls his eyes, scoops her up into his arms and does his best to not worry about the pained gasp the motion pulls from her. ‘She’ll come for you, Dina.’

‘Because she’s cool,’ Dina says drowsily, leaning in to his chest. He holds her all the more tightly; she's small and slight and it sends a sharp pain through his chest. She may not look anything like his daughters, but it hits him that maybe he cares about her just as much. ‘And tough.’

‘Yeah. And because she loves you,’ he says. He breaks into a run when he sees her eyes are closed.

//

‘Joel.’ Ellie’s harsh whisper echoes through the air vent and he knocks gently against the wall to help her find them. 'Joel?’

It’s a few more minutes before he hears the shuffle of her approach and the grate swings down, bangs against the wall.

‘Quiet! Do you want to bring them down on our—‘

‘They’re taken care of,’ Ellie cuts him off, her eyes haunted and red and black splattered over her shirt. ‘Where is she?’

‘Through here.’ He leads her into the office, to the couch where he had laid Dina out. ‘I stabilised her with what I had but she needs to get back to Perry.’

Ellie jerks a nod, chews at her bottom lip as she surveys the room. Joel keeps quiet, watching his girl. When she finally, finally manages to look at Dina, her whole body jerks and she staggers, falls into a crouch next to her.

‘I, ah.’ She clears her throat. ‘I have medicine, to keep her—to stop an infection.’

‘That’s good, Ellie, that’s real good, it'll help.’

Ellie nods again. Her hands are shaking as she pulls the small vial out of its box but when she touches Dina, feels the burning heat from her skin, a calm falls over her and it’s a matter of seconds for her to fill the syringe and deliver the medicine to her. It’s wishful thinking on his part, Joel knows, but he swears when Ellie puts the medicine away and takes Dina’s hand in her own, Dina’s ragged breathing eases and steadies and she regains a little healthy colour in her cheeks.

‘Tommy is coming with the truck,’ Ellie tells him. ‘Will you—will you carry her?’

‘Course.’

He steps over to the couch, crouches next to her. Before he can touch Dina, Ellie sets a hand on his shoulder and grips his shirt hard, knocks her head onto his shoulder.

‘Thank you, Joel. _Thank_ you. I don’t know what—if I’d lost her,’

Joel twists, cups the back of her head and presses a kiss to her forehead. ‘I gotchu, baby girl. Ain’t nothing taking my girls.’

She breaks away, swipes under her eyes with her wrist. ‘Right.’ Clears her throat. ‘I think I hear him. Let me go first, make sure everything is clear.’

//

Joel is at her bedside when she stirs. A groan slips through her lips and a whistle of a pained gasp. He rockets out of the chair, onto his feet.

‘Ellie!’ he calls, even as he approaches Dina's bedside.

‘She’s gone for a bit of grub,’ the kid—Howie, Joel thinks their name is, Ellie’s friend—tells him, leaning their head in from the door to the medical bay. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Something's all right,’ he tells the kid.

Howie takes one look at Dina, at her fluttering lashes, and takes off at a sprint. ‘Ellie! Ellie, she’s waking up! Ellie!’

Joel steps around the bed, puts a hand to Dina’s aunts shoulder. ‘Hey, looks like she’s waking up,’ he says, and he steps back when the woman comes awake in a split second, lurches to her girl’s side. He watches the ever familiar sight of relief crashing through her and he murmurs quietly to Isra, pulls her chair closer so she can sit when her knees give out and all she can do is press Dina's wrist to her own forehead, kiss her hand, and just _breathe_. She ran out of worried tears a day or more ago so now she just breathes shakily and nods. 

Ellie bursts through the doorway moments later, breathing harsh. ‘Joel?’ A note of anxiety makes his name waver in the air.

‘She looks like she’s waking up,’ he says, urges her forward.

‘I don’t want to intrude,’

‘Don’t be daft, Ellie,’ Dina’s aunt laughs, and she reaches out, twines her fingers with Ellie's and pulls her over. Brings her into a hug as they stand together and watch their girl.

Dina blinks.

Her eyes look hazed and she blinks again, tilts her head toward them with a sigh. ‘Girl could-‘ she coughs, swallows. Sips at the water her aunt offers. ‘Girl could get used to an audience like this. Applause just for waking up?’

Ellie groans her disapproval, but she can’t hide the grin that splits her face or the tears, try as she might to brush them away.


	25. Hunter: Ellie, Target: Bad Dude

Can we get a fic/prompt thing of ellie showing off her "hunting" skills (by saving her friends or hunting some assholes down idk) 

* * *

She’s got her rifle in her hands, the stock solid against her shoulder, and Dina’s pretty face in her sights.

‘Hey there, darlin,’ Ellie says as casually as she can, trying to keep her jumping heart rate from messing with her even keel. ‘How you feeling?’

‘Just fine,’ Dina calls back, and she grimaces when the man wraps his grimy arm tighter around her throat, yanks her closer in front of him.

‘Can’t shoot your little girlfriend, can you!’ he yells up at her.

Ellie slinks down behind the barricade, creeps as far to the side as she’s able to without letting him see her. A branch hangs over her with thick leaf cover and Ellie props her rifle up again, waits until he starts to think making she isn’t there anymore and turns slightly away from her.

The shot _cracks_ through the streets, makes Ellie flinch. Most of the other hunters have been dealt with, but there’s always the risk of runners. She waits a moment to make sure she got this one at least—not that she really needs to, she knows exactly how good of a shot she is—and when Dina shrugs out of his limp hold and dashes for the safety of a rusted car, Ellie lowers her rifle and stands. She climbs down to the street, strides over to Dina.

‘Are you all right?’ she demands, hands skidding over a scrape on Dina’s chin, the wash of blood on her hands that must not be hers. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks again, pulling her in tight and Dina nods quickly, hands shaking as they find rest, haven, on Ellie’s back.

‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ she murmurs into Ellie’s neck. when Ellie pulls back to say—how worried she was, how shit it is to see Dina like that, how scared she was of hurting her—Dina kisses her and Ellie’s words leave her. ‘I’m okay,’ Dina says again, and Ellie grins when she realises Dina was saying it for her. ‘Let’s go get the rest of these fucking monsters and get our friends back.’

Ellie nods, slings her rifle onto her back. She checks the hunters pockets, his red soaked jacket for ammo, anything they can use, and when they set out again, she makes sure Dina has a loaded pistol in her hand.


	26. Movie Night

dina/ellie cuddles with a movie??

* * *

It’s a kids movie, technically, about toys that come to life when their owner isn’t watching but mostly everyone not on shift or patrol is in the rec hall. The little kids have dragged mattresses and blankets to the front, near the screen. The adults have carried a few couches in and chairs and set up an amused, knowing barrier in the middle. And those in-betweeners, the teens and not-quite-adults, line their mattresses up against the far wall and flop together in a messy nest of blankets and laughter.

And when Tommy flicks the circuit breaker and the television flicks on, a harshness in the air…eases. Is set aside, suspended, for the next two hours, where the adults who lived Before can remember, live a sweet grief, and the kids who have never seen anything like this can dream, and those who have the vaguest of memories from Before—a touch, a smell, a voice—can pretend.

Ellie sits with her back up against the wall and Dina to her right, already half asleep.

‘She wasn’t lying when she said she doesn’t make it through a full movie, huh?’

‘I’m surprised she lasted this long,’ Ellie whispers back to Howie, who crawls into the place on her left and sets their scrounged hoard of sweets into the pile with the rest. ‘Excited?’

‘I hate this movie. Only one the military had for “fun night”,’ they tell her, air quotes and all. ‘Mind if I?’ they ask, waving to her lap, and Ellie shakes her head, opening her left side for them to rest however they choose. Howie settles lengthways, sets their head down on Ellie’s lap and sighs happily when she slings her arm over their chest.

‘Knock me if I snore,’ they mutter, and Ellie promises to do so but she doesn’t intend to follow through on that.

Jesse enters the hall about ten minutes after the movie starts. Ellie guesses he’d been flipping between whether or not he should come and, when he meets her eyes across the room, she tilts her head in invitation. Her smile—small as it is—is honest.

‘Come here,’ she mouths. Watches as he debates it further, standing at the door, and she adds, 'Please.'

He knows the creaks and cracks in the floorboards as well as all of them so it takes a while for him to make it over to them but he does, falling onto his knees on Ellie’s mattress and digging a packet out of his pocket. An offering, an apology, a gift?

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she tells him, voice pitched quiet. ‘These two don’t like movies.’

‘Blasphemy.' Jesse shakes his head and his teasing sounds just like it always has. He drops the candy into the bowl, takes Ellie’s nod with a wry twist of his mouth, and he settles in next to her under Howie’s legs, lifting them up over his lap.

‘What’s happened so far?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Wow. Real helpful.’

‘There’s some stuffed toys and there’s an astronaut and some romantic tension between him and the cowboy.’

‘Oh mood.’

Ellie moves the candy between her and Jesse, carefully, not wanting to dislodge Dina, and a little pain she hadn't noticed before begins to ease when her friend - one of her _best_ friends - takes the candy with a grin and settles a little more comfortably next to her. It takes a few minutes more before they're trading old jokes with one another, watching as much of the movie as they can between the darkened silhouettes of the adults on their couches, but they fall back into it with a comfortable, comforting ease.

‘Should I be jealous?’ Dina asks her on one of those rare occasions a loud sound from the television jolts her awake. She nods down to Howie, to Ellie’s hand stroking over their shoulder. Grins when Ellie rolls her eyes.

‘Yes, we are in a passionate engagement. I’m deeply ashamed you found out this way.’

Next to her, Jesse snorts. Ellie feels Dina freeze and then relax.

‘I'm broken hearted,’ Dina tells her. Presses a series of quick, light kisses to Ellie’s cheek, her collar, her shoulder. Just saying, _I’m here, hello_. The third kiss, the one that lingers. Not in any igniting way, but comfortably. That one is a thank you, Ellie is pretty sure. Dina settles again, cheek smooshed to Ellie’s shoulder. ‘Have you two eaten all the candy?’

‘…No.’

‘There’s some, uh,’ Ellie scrapes through the empty wrappers, trades a panicked glance with Jesse who pats over his lap and the pockets of his jacket. Ellie holds one last sour burst up victoriously. Yellow. Presents it to Dina.

‘I'm gonna eat it,’ Dina says, taking it from her, ‘but I'm furious about it.’

‘Noted.’

Dina mutters and chews and throws herself into Ellie’s side with a huff, which Ellie ignores, grinning. Finally she dozes again, fingers dragging over the curl of Ellie’s tattoo.

Jesse waits until she’s well and truly settled—knows Dina from her steady breathing, the slack in her hand, and Ellie waits for a fissure of unease that he knows her as he does, but it never comes—before he speaks.

‘It was over long before we broke up.’

‘Jesse,’

‘No, look, I reckon I would want to know in your place.’ He runs his fingers though his hair, ties it back with a hair band snapped around his wrist. Tendrils of escaped hair hang to either side, framing his face, and he tucks them back with a little annoyed flick of his hand. ‘Dina and me, we had been fighting for ages.’

‘I remember.’

He grins. ‘Both of us came to you, huh?’

‘It got…awkward.’

‘I bet. Sorry to put you in that position.’

‘Don’t be. You’re one of my best friends, Jesse, you know that. Right?’

‘I do, yeah. Still, if I'd known you were into her I might’ve gone to someone else for advice,’ he jokes. It falls flat and he grimaces. ‘I didn’t mean that like,’

‘s’fine. Can’t imagine I gave good advice anyway,’ she laughs, only a little strained by the instant rush of guilt. Had she had a hand in it? Had she wanted to make them break up? She thought—she’d tried to do right by both of them but—

‘Ellie. Hey.’ Jesse scoots closer, making Howie grumble as they're jostled. He waits until Howie settles before he reaches out to her, his warm hand big and calloused on the exposed skin of her neck. He squeezes gently, pulls her closer. ‘It was a joke. A bad one.’

‘What if,’

‘You didn’t. Pretty sure it would’ve torn you to pieces if you had, judging from the way you’re all twisted up just thinking about it.’ He squeezes again, lets his hand slip to her shoulder and then away.

Ellie notices that Dina is suspiciously still next to her. She’s not sure how long she’s been faking for but it makes her smile.

‘You’re probably right.’

‘Damn right. And as your superior officer,’

He ignores Ellie’s instant, 'Pfft in your _dreams_,’ and continues,

‘I order you to forget about it. And not to worry about me.’

Ellie scoffs. ‘I don’t worry about you.'

Howie snorts. ‘You worry about everyone. Are y’all done with the touchy feely shit? I’m actually getting into this movie.’

‘Yeah.’ Jesse looks over to her, dark eyes clear and fond, and he grins when Ellie nods to him. ‘Yeah, we’re good.’

‘Dina can probably stop faking being asleep then,’ Ellie suggests, very sweetly, and they laugh when she swears at them all. ‘C’mon, stay awake with us.’

Grumbling, Dina moves to sit upright. It’s truly excruciating to watch her grumble and whine and move slowly, obviously expecting some help. But Ellie just waits, and smiles, and enjoys the way Dina is torn between being grumpy about it and amused.

‘No wonder y’all fit so well,’ Jesse says. ‘You just let her get away with her bullshit.’

‘It’s funny,’ Ellie shrugs.

‘My _bullshit_?’ Dina demands, folding her arms over her chest. ‘Wow.’

‘What do you prefer?’ Ellie asks. ‘Dramatics?’

‘Dickery.’

‘We’ve already broken up once, Jesse, don’t make me do it worse,’ Dina threatens. It’s undermined by her faint smile but not by much.

‘Tomfoolery.’

‘What are you, eighty?’

‘Loud,’ Howie says. ‘You’re all _loud_.’

Chided, they settle. Ellie slings her arm around Dina’s shoulders, beams at the screen when her girlfriend shifts closer, leans in.

‘She’s asleep again,’ Jesse whispers a minute later.

Ellie nods. ‘She can’t help it.’


	27. Busted

I love all your writing! Pretty please, write Joel finding out about Ellie and Dina being a couple 

* * *

Ellie slinks out of her bedroom, red-faced and now fully clothed.

‘So. You saw, um, that.’

‘Old enough to do it, old enough to talk about it.’ Joel holds his challenging stare just long enough to see his daughters face fall in horror before he chuckles. ‘I’m kidding. Y'all are, uh, safe?’

‘Yes.’ More colour bursts over her cheeks.

‘Good, good.’ Joel scratches at his beard. ‘I thought she was dating that boy. Long haired fellow.’

‘His name is Jesse and you know it.’ Ellie levels a glare at him. ‘And they broke up months ago.’

‘And you stepped in.’

‘I—‘ Ellie falters. She walks over, sits opposite him at the kitchen table. ‘She,’

‘Where is she, by the way?’

‘Climbed out the window.’

‘Ah.’

‘You have a bit of a reputation.’

‘I do?’

‘Crazy man who single handedly cleared half of the US?’

‘Aw, yeah well, we both know that’s not accurate. You were there, weren’t you?’

Ellie laughs, leans back in her chair. ‘True.’

‘So,’ Joel prompts. ‘Dina.’

The smile he sees from his girl is new. Or, not really. But he suspects he’s seen only flashes of it in the last few months, like a favourite song heard from the next room behind a closed door. Now, now he’s got first row tickets to the live concert and it’s breathtaking.

‘Yeah,’ she whispers, fingers twisting into the cuffs of her sleeves. ‘Dina.’

‘Well look at that,’ he breathes.

Ellie frowns over at him, confused. ‘What?’

‘That’s a hell of a smile, baby girl.’

‘Oh.’ Ellie frowns harder but the smile slips through and she laughs at herself, drags a hand over her red face. ‘Joel,’ she whines.

‘It’s a mighty fine look on you.’

‘Stop it.’

‘I won’t.’ He does, though. They sit in silence for a bit, a tender thrumming moment captured in grey winter light through the windows and a bursting joy in his chest. ‘She’s your girlfriend?’

‘I—yeah. Yeah, she is.’

‘Your first?’ When Ellie’s flush bursts over her face again, he sighs. ‘I didn’t mean it like that but it’s safe to guess yes, isn’t it?’ Ellie doesn’t answer. ‘You be good to her now, hear? And if you need any advice, er, bedroom oriented,’

‘I would go to someone else,’ Ellie tells him quickly.

‘And if she isn’t good to you,’ he continues, ‘you tell someone. Doesn’t have to be me, but, well,’ he clears his throat, meets her eyes, ‘you deserve good things. The best.’

‘It’s Dina for me, Dad,’ Ellie tells him.

‘In that case,’ he can’t quite contain a smirk, ‘we oughta have her over for dinner. Get to know her.’

‘You’ve met her before,’

‘Not as your girlfriend.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’

‘Oho yes it does.’

‘Joel!’

‘Ellie.’ Ellie flings up her hands, storms back to her room. ‘Door open when she’s over!’ It slams behind her and a full bellied laugh bursts out of him.


	28. Seduction of the Dina

I really loved your fanfics. But I would like to read ellie trying to seduce dina

* * *

‘Well hey there pretty lady, you goin’ my way?’

‘Why is it,’ Dina asks her, ‘that your flirting always sounds like you’re some forty year old polite southerner?’

‘My formative years were spent listening to Joel chat up the Bergin twins,’ Ellie laughs, hopping down from the fence and stepping up into Dina’s space, hands finding their favourite place on her hips. She grips tight, lifts Dina and spins her so she’s the one sitting on the fence and grins, pupils blown wide, when her girlfriend hooks a leg around hers and pulls her in. ‘Did I mention you look really pretty today?’

‘Is it the hair? Or the fact that I’m wearing your clothes?’

‘Both, probably.’ Ellie is loathe to stop holding Dina but she reaches up, tucks a lock of Dina’s now much shorter hair behind her ear, careful not to dislodge her headscarf. ‘Your hair is lovely. The clothes… The clothes we can do without.’

Dina laughs, winds her arms around Ellie’s neck and rewards her wit with a lingering kiss, all affection and practised attention to exactly the way to get Ellie hot and bothered in zero point two seconds. Ellie feels her knees buckle and she drops her hand, skids it over the exposed skin at Dina’s waist to make her girlfriend gasp and shiver.

‘You wouldn’t be trying to start something you have no intention of finishing, would you?’ Ellie murmurs, dragging her nails in slow, gentle lines over the swell of Dina’s hip. ‘I happen to know you have a shift starting in ten minutes.’

‘You saying you can’t manage that?’

‘I can manage anything you like,’ Ellie tells her. ‘You just need to tell me what you want. Something quick now? Or—‘

‘Yes.’

Ellie sighs, pulls back a fraction. Dina’s elbows lock, not letting her get too far. ‘Love, I’m trying to seduce you for tonight.’

‘Ten minutes. Right now.’

‘Damn. Alright.’ Ellie slips down out of Dina’s hold and in a quick move, she hoists her girlfriend over her shoulder in a fireman’s hold and starts off toward their house.


	29. Dina Saves Ellie

Dina impressing Ellie with her skills one day when an Infected showed up during their patrol?

* * *

East out of Jackson, the river had spent a few years unrestrained, washing away foliage and rock until it’s bare and barren. A smattering of old trees—wide trunks, deep roots—remain and in the tallest one they’ve built a nest of sorts. A treehouse. The rope ladder always creaks ominously underfoot but Dina takes a little time every time she’s put on duty there to check it for wear and tear and replace any of the rungs that look a bit too worn. It’s coiled up on the boards next to her now and Dina sits on the bench looking east.

Sunrise makes it hard to see, the light splintering over the mountain range and blinding her, but she focuses because this is vital, this is her job.

And also, Ellie is due home any day now.

She’s partway through her shift, pacing and stretching her legs. It gets super fucking cold up here and her fingers are a little numb. She lowers her head to blow on them and—movement, down in the river bed? She’s not certain but she dashes for her gun, brings the scope up so she can see.

Ellie.

She looks bad. Shirt torn and bloody, a bandage wrapped around her thigh. Blood stain across her middle. As much as Dina wants to hope it’s not Ellie’s, she’s too pale by far and she’s moving too slow. It’s hers.

Dina fumbles for her walkie. It crackles to life.

‘This is the Crows Nest,’ she says into it. ‘I’ve got a visual on Ellie. Over.’

The response comes almost immediately. ‘_Crows Nest, this is Jackson. That is good news_,’ the respondent says, and Dina recognises Tommy’s voice. ‘_How does our girl look? Over_.’

‘Morning, Tommy. Not great, but she’s keeping a steady pace.’ Dina pauses. ‘She’s going pretty fast, actually and—‘ A sick feeling comes over her. ‘Hold that thought, Tommy.’ She drops the walkie onto the bench and lifts her scope again. Focuses on Ellie, and watches as her girlfriend throws a look back over her shoulder. She looks grim, set. Dina shifts her focus slowly, slowly—_there_.

‘Jackson, I have a sighting on infected. Counted seventeen on my first sweep. Over.’

‘_I hear you, Crows Nest. I'll round up a team to go out for Ellie. Until then, I want you to lay covering fire for her—get her as far from those infected as you can. Over._’

‘Copy that. What if your dumbass girlfriend is stopping to fight them? Over.’

The line crackles with a heavy sigh. ‘_Pick them off for her. Just do your best. ETA seven minutes. Over and out_.’

Dina sets the walkie on the table and kneels at her perch, setting her rifle on its brace. She breathes in and settles her heart rate, can’t help but focus on Ellie again.

Nothing but grim determination in that face.

‘I hate you so much,’ Dina whispers. ‘Run, you idiot.’ She won’t, though; Dina knows Ellie, knows that she’ll feel guilty for bringing them so close to home. ‘Oh you and I are gonna have words later.’

She blows a kiss to Ellie and then adjusts her sights, focuses on one of the fast moving runners. Ellie can’t move quickly enough to avoid these ones, Dina is pretty sure, so she finds a number of them and prepares. Once the first shot goes off, they’ll break into a sprint so she’ll have to do this right.

The first shot blows the runner clean back into the following pack. There’s a moment of still and Dina wants desperately to see Ellie’s expression—relief? impressed?—but she has a job to do. She leans into the heavy stock, squeezes the trigger again. Another. And another. The infected have caught on at this point and so too has Ellie. Dina casts a look toward her when she reloads though from this distance she doesn't catch much more than a splash of her green jacket against the grey rock far below. It looks like Ellie has found herself a spot behind a fallen tree and she's picking off the advancing infected with her pistol. One, two, three. She ducks down behind the tree and Dina guesses she’s reloading, so she pulls the rifle up again and glares at the infected closest to her girl.

‘Oh no you don’t, fungal breath.’

She’s too busy watching the main horde to notice the clicker that peels off from the rest, leaps over the fallen tree. When Ellie’s yell bursts up, though, Dina swings her sights to see the bursting, blooming head of the clicker in its sickly yellow and reds, and Ellie’s wide eyes and—

Chunks of the clicker splatter over Ellie, who sags before catching herself on the bark of the tree, fingers slick and slippery with bright blood Dina prays isn’t her own. Ellie can’t know who it is in the nest but for a moment, Ellie's eyes flickering up toward the Nest, it feels like she’s looking right at Dina and the relief is plain on her face. She nods her thanks before diving for her bag, dragging herself further up the bank toward the settlement.

She’s moving too slow, fiddling with something in her hands.

Dina reloads and covers her as best she can but they’re coming closer, erratic and quick and she swears, feeling herself start to sweat, when she misses more than she hits this time.

‘Calm down, Dina,’ she tells herself sternly. ‘Breathe, aim, fire. Just like your mama taught you.’

She shakes out her shoulders, leans into the stock again. Takes out the one closest to Ellie—who isn’t running or, worst, can’t run—and watches as Ellie hefts a nasty, scrappy looking jar in her hand, sets in on the ground, and scrambles as best she can away.

Dina counts it out. one, two—the infected are swarmed around the jar and she aims and fires and—

The bomb bursts out, slashing the trees and infected with shrapnel. Ellie—she can’t see Ellie anymore, hidden somewhere within the tree line.

The walkie crackles on the table. ‘_Anything left for us, Crows Nest? Over_.’

Dina lurches for it, pulls it to her lips with a shaking hand. ‘There’s a few left that need putting down. Looks like Ellie got away but I can’t see her, she cut into the brush. I know she’s wall-bound. Over.’

‘_Copy that. ETA one minute—you’ll see them any second now_.’

She hears them first—the call lifting that ‘Found Ellie! Kinsey, get a med-kit over here now!’—and then sees the fighters step in a line out from the forest, cleaning picking off the last of the groaning infected.

Waiting to be relieved is agony but finally a fresh-faced kid arrives. He who looks too young to handle a gun—but they all are really, and he’s scarred up enough to tell her that he’s as much a fighter as they all are—and she hands the nest over, hurries down the ladder fast enough that her hands sting with heat from the rope burn. She runs all the way back to town, and when Tommy snags her, she goes with him.

‘Through here.’

They hadn’t made it to the clinic, apparently, because Perry is working on Ellie’s stomach where a jagged cut is scored across it and she’s up to the wrists in blood and her face is set and lined.

‘What kind of foolish, empty-brained move earned you this, hmm?’

‘Tell you all about it if you give me a—ah!’ Ellie grunts, grabs at the hand of the fighter next to her. Her hand is slippery with mud and water and red and he catches her hand and wrist, clings tight. Gives her hand a squeeze. ‘Give me a fucking drink, Perry.’

The doctor chuckles but doesn’t reply, attention focused on Ellie’s injuries.

Dina steps in, squeezes sanitizer over her hands. ‘I’ll help.’

‘Get in here,’ Perry tells her, shifting. ‘She’s got a laceration to the calf.’

‘Nail bomb.’

‘You_ were_ my guardian angel,’ Ellie says, sounding victorious. ‘I knew it.’

‘Pretty good, yeah? Now shut up while I save your life for the second time today. And it’s only six.’

‘Plenty of time to—oh god, careful Perry, I think I need that to live. Plenty of time to make it three.’

‘Better not.’ 


	30. Jealousy? Never Heard of It

Mind writing a jealous ellie or dine?

* * *

‘Dina’s been talking with Jesse for an awful long time,’ Rose comments lightly, sliding into the seat across from Ellie. She smiles disarmingly when Ellie looks up from her book. ‘Just thought you’d like to know.’

‘They’re friends. Sometimes.’

‘Right. friends.’ Rose nods. There's something like glee in her eyes, though she’s trying to mask it with pity or concern. ‘I wouldn’t trust my girlfriend with her ex.’

‘Right, well, seems like a conversation you should have with your girlfriend?’ Ellie suggests, shrugging. She fights the urge to roll her eyes—barely—and turns the page in her book.

‘You don’t have to pretend around me,’ Rose says sweetly. Reaching over the table, she touches Ellie’s arm, strokes gently over the curve of her wrist. Ellie stills, surprised, and pulls her hand away. ‘I know it’s an awkward conversation to have but I thought someone ought to have it with you. It’s not fair, what she’s doing to you,’

‘What’s awkward, Rose, is that whatever you’re trying to do, you’re doing it very badly.’ Ellie keeps her voice low but firm. She doesn’t want bad blood, doesn’t want to embarrass Rose in front of the handful of folk in the mess, but she wants to make it very clear she’s not having any piece of this. ‘I trust Dina. I also trust Jesse. Even if what you’re saying is true, and Dina is involved with Jesse, well,’ she shrugs again. ‘That’s a conversation I’ll have to have with her and both of them. Not with you.’

‘What are you doing with Rose?’

Ellie turns toward Dina like a sunflower to the sun, a smile lifting her frown and mood. It only grows when Dina waves for her to drag her chair out a little and plops onto her lap, winding her arms possessively around Ellie’s neck. Ellie abandons her novel to loop her own around Dina’s waist.

‘I'm doing nothing with Rose, just chatting. Just like you and Jesse.’

Dina’s hold tightens and then relaxes. Ellie can feel a dangerous tension run through her like a live wire, Dina’s eyes sparking where they meet Rose’s across the table.

‘Oh, was Rose checking in on us? That’s so sweet.’ Her tone, saccharine sweet, leaves no doubt that she thinks nothing of the such. She holds the smile until Rose mutters an excuse and flees. ‘Was she flirting with you?’

Ellie props her chin on Dina’s shoulder. ‘Is touching my arm flirting?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then yes.’

Dina fumes silently for a minute before getting off Ellie’s lap. ‘Come on.’

‘Where to?’ Ellie asks, even as she packs up her things.

‘We’re going to make out in the corridor outside her room so she knows we’re dating. And that you are well and truly _taken_.’

‘Seems a bit over the top.’

‘What, you don’t want to?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Ellie grins. ‘Lead the way.’

**Author's Note:**

> hi im unicyclehippo on tumblr too, feel free to come by & say hi & send me a prompt if u want


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